ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 turns to the Belgian missionary Placide Tempels, and his 1946 work Bantu Philosophy, which is arguably a precursor of what is now called the ontological turn in anthropology. In his book, Tempels reconstructed the spirited world experience of the African people he came to convert with the help of Western philosophical concepts. His religious aim, to not dehumanize his African interlocutors, as this would make their true conversion impossible, made him cross standing delineations of theology and philosophy, as well as change both disciplines from within and Africanize them. Rereading Tempels will add meaningfully to the question: can philosophy be critical and embrace spirit ontologies all the same?
