Background
Kagame, Alexis was born on May 15, 1912 in Kyanza.
Kagame, Alexis was born on May 15, 1912 in Kyanza.
Minor Seminary, Kabgayi, 1928-1933. Major Seminary, 1933-1941. Ordained in the Roman Catholic priesthood, 1941.
Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome 1955. PhD in Philosophy, 1955. Independent research in Bantu linguistics in Switzerland, Germany.
Holland and England. 1955-1956.
Editor, Kinyamateka, 1941-1951. Professor °f Philosphy and History, Groupe Scolaire, Astrida. Professor of Literature, Minor Seminary °f Kansi, 1956-1970.
Professor of African Cultures ar>d Professor of History, Major Seminary of iSyakibanda and the National University of Rwanda, 1971-1980.
R°r Kagame there is a Bantu philosophy and it is founded on two conditions: the linguistic coherence of Bantu languages; and the Practicality of western philosophical methods. F°r Kagame the merit of Tcmpels’s philosophical w°rk resides in making available the method. He Su8gests a going beyond Temples’s Bantu Philos°phy by paying attention to languages. Using an Aristotelian grid, Kagame describes what he calls a Bantu-Rwandan philosophy of being—distinguishing formal logic, anthropology, theodicy, c°smology and ethics. Kagame’s basic assumphons are that all the Bantu linguistic categories Can be reduced to four basic concepts: Muntu = Being of intelligence, corresponds to the AristoteIian notion of substance; Kintu = being 'rithout intelligence or thing; Hantu expresses fr*e time and place (presents variants such as Pain *Be eastern Bantu languages, Hiin the west and(7o- + lo/ro in the south); Kuntu indicates fre modality and thus centralizes all the notions related to modifications of the being in itself or vis-à-vis other beings. As such kuntu corresponds to seven different Aristotelian categories. Bantu ontology in its reality and significance expresses itself through the complementarity and connections existing between these four categories, all of them created from the same root, ntu, which refers to being but also, simultaneously, to the idea of force. Kagame insists that the Bantu equivalent of to be does not express the notion of existence and therefore cannot translate the Cartesian cogito. It is by enunciating muntu, kintu, etc., that one is signifying an essence or something in which the notion of existence is not necessarily present.