ABSTRACT
In this chapter I present a review of the debate on ethnophilosophy from the time the Belgian Franciscan missionary Placide Tempels initiated the ethnophilosophical tendency in philosophico-anthropological studies in Africa with the publication of his 1945 axial work, Bantoe-filosofie (La philosophie bantoue). More specifically, I argue that ethnophilosophy is the foundation and a resource for African and intercultural philosophy. I focus on the implications of ethnophilosophy in relation to the main articulations of African philosophy today, with specific reference to Odera Oruka’s sage philosophy/philosophic sagacity. I posit that the major aspects of African philosophy today revolve around Tempels, in the sense that his work provided a conceptual framework and reference for all future attempts to formulate the constitutive elements of a distinctive African mode of thought. I further submit that in the context of globalization, Tempels’s vision of a Bantu philosophy is a perennial source best suited to complement other globally available philosophical traditions, such as the Western, Indian, Chinese, Persian, Arabic, and Hebrew philosophy—to limit ourselves just to literate traditions. We live in global intercultural times, and if we are searching for the wellspring of African philosophical concepts, ethnophilosophy could be such a genuine base for Africa’s contributions to world philosophy. This requires taking ethnophilosophy to a new level in a bid to overcome its supposed debased and substandard assumptions. It also implies enriching discourses on ethnophilosophy to a new level with concepts that promote the criticality and analyticity demanded by critics of ethnophilosophy, in a manner conducive to system-building.
