The Reverend Placide Tempels | |
---|---|
Born | Frans Tempels 18 February 1906 |
Died | 9 October 1977 | (aged 71)
Nationality | Belgian |
Occupation(s) | missionary, writer |
Placide Frans Tempels, OFM (18 February 1906 – 9 October 1977) was a Belgian Franciscan missionary in the Congo who became famous for his book Bantu Philosophy.
Life
[edit]Tempels was born in Berlaar, Belgium. Born Frans Tempels, he took the name "Placide" on his entry into a Franciscan seminary in 1924. After his ordination to the priesthood in 1930 he taught for a short time in Belgium before being posted to the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1933. He stayed there for twenty-nine years, broken by only two short stays back in Belgium. In April 1962 he returned to live in a Franciscan monastery in Hasselt, where he died in 1977.
Bantu Philosophy
[edit]Though neither African nor a philosopher, Tempels had a huge influence on African philosophy through the publication in 1945 of his book La philosophie bantoue, published in the English language in 1959 as Bantu Philosophy.[citation needed]
Philosophie bantoue
[edit]Also in 1945, the Philosophie bantoue was published by Father Placide Tempels and immediately triggered a voracious debate among African philosophers, including Alexis Kagame and Mubabinge Bilolo. Paulin Hountondji disdainfully called Tempels' ideas ethnophilosophies and as such nothing more than a classical ethnological study of Africa and its peoples.[1]
References
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