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In spite of his ambiguities, Tempels was one of the first Europeans to recognize references to a developed philosophical system by an African society. Forty-five years after its publication, a critical review of Bantu Philosophy helps renew our thinking about the relations between philosophy and African languages, thus permitting us to escape the impasse of “ethno-philosophy.” This article argues that, while every language forges a specific “vision of the world,” this does not imply confinement in a given “mentality”: language “induces without necessitating.”