How Does Philosophy Learn To Speak A New Language?

Translation has gone under the microscope many times and many theories have been created to explain, systematize and understand it. Some of these theories are linguistic (Jakobson, Nida, etc.) others are cultural (the postcolonial translation theory, etc.) as well as other theories that approached translation from various angles. Some of these theories are philosophical in the sense that they deal with translation from a philosophical point of view. The current paper is to review and classify these theories and identify the reasons behind their inception. In doing so, the relation between philosophy and translation will be examined and determined. It is proposed in this paper that translation in its nature is a philosophical process that involves logic and epistemology.

You would be hard-pressed to rustle up a philosopher likely to utter the dismissive phrase, 'but that's just semantics!' 'Semantics' means the theory of meaning; and an impressive quantity of philosophical work of impressive quality has been devoted to semantics during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Works of philosophical semantics which deservedly enjoy the status of classics explore such questions as: whence does linguistic meaning originate? How do meanings change? How do sub-sentential items combine syntactically to yield assertions, or ask questions, or issue commands? What rôle might a theory of truth play in the theory of meaning? What grasp must a person have on the semantics of some given language, in order to count as a competent speaker of it? The questions are of formidable complexity; their inter-relations are intricate and often quite opaque. The best answers on offer are brilliant, but, almost without exception, rather contentious. However, despite the remarkable creativity and intensity of the philosophy of language, philosophers more or less entirely neglect the topic of translation. One might object that The Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon, just published in English translation and weighing in at a massive 1344 pages, gives the lie to my accusation. In due course I shall return to this doorstop. That neglect is prima facie surprising. One of the things I should like to establish is that the surprise should not subside: philosophical neglect of translation is an abiding enigma. Here is the game plan: there are going to be four bits. In the first bit, I shall sketch out how it is that plenty of non-philosophical folk -that is, just about everybody -are, on occasion, exercised by translational phenomena -whether rightly or wrongly. In the second bit, I shall contrast that non-philosophical attitude with the exiguous attention philosophy pays translation. In the third bit, I shall speculate about what some distinctively philosophical problems of translation might be. At last, in the fourth bit, I shall get down to business by exemplifying my hunches with some ancient Chinese and ancient Greek documents. § § § § § § Here is the first bit: how it is that non-philosophical folk are exercised by translational phenomena. Monty Python have a sketch dating back to 1970 wherein the villain of the piece is a tourist's phrasebook which rather unhelpfully renders the Hungarian original of 'please direct me to the railway station' as 'please fondle my on the very idea...

in: SubStance. A Review of Theory and Literary Criticism (University of Wisconsin Press), « Translation Matters », vol. 44, no 2, 2015, p. 15-29.

Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation, 2021

Translation and Philosophy are vast and capacious disciplines, and it is to D. M. Spitzer's credit that the volume Philosophy's Treason (2020) collects contributions from a suitably international range of thinkers, translators, and critics-from Moscow to Rio, Hong Kong to Vienna. Maybe it is too early to say with certainty, but if practitioners of both disciplines are not careful they may come to regret not capitalising on the recent interjections of Barbara Cassin and Emily Apter's work on untranslatability. The recognition of their mutual importance will need to be sustained in pedagogy and syllabi - as much as in recent research - if it is to continue and develop further.

Proz, 2022

In this article I will try to highlight some fundamental convergence points between the practice of translation and the practice of philosophy. More specifically, I will argue that philosophy can prove an effective translation tool, which fellow translators can exploit to fine-tune their skills. I will proceed in three steps. First (1), I will lay the basis for my substantive argument by suggesting that both philosophers and translators are committed to what is normally referred to as the principle of charity. Then (2) I will explain why I believe that an approach wedded to the principle of charity (and to its underlying rationale) is crucial to the enterprise of translation. Finally (3), I will address from a practical standpoint the question of how fellow translators can benefit from a philosophical training.

Target. International Journal of Translation Studies, 2020

Even highly regarded translators cannot escape the common suspicion that philosophical ideas are not communicable in foreign languages – a suspicion that plagues philosophical translation. Translators effectively counter this distrust of translation when they explicitly claim to have collaborated with the author. This paper focuses on the Italian translation of Sein und Zeit (Being and Time) (first published in 1927; Heidegger 1986a), titled Essere e tempo (Heidegger 2006, trans. Marini), whose translator, Alfredo Marini, took particularly interesting measures to legitimate his work. This case is especially intriguing because Pietro Chiodi’s earlier translation (Heidegger 1953, 1976, 2005) is still popular in Italy despite Chiodi’s own complaints that the German text is untranslatable. The widespread acceptance of the earlier Italian translation presents a considerable problem of legitimation for Marini, who counters Chiodi’s views by arguing for the translatability of the text and ...

The present paper emphasizes the difficulties in translating philosophical texts in general, with a special focus on Romanian translations of German philosophical writings. Translators of philosophical texts face a dilemma, since they are compelled to oscillate between two translation principles: that of transferring an unaltered message on the one hand, and that of preserving the style which defines the subjectivity of the text, on the other. In order to overcome such constraints, a thorough understanding of the text message is needed, which raises the issue of the essential role of the reception process in understanding the meaning of a text, especially a philosophical one. We further focus on reception mechanisms and the (in)stability of meaning in the context of philosophical debate and literary critique, since a deeper understanding of these complex mechanisms is extremely useful both during the translation process and when analysing and assessing a translation as a product.

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2019

The present paper emphasizes the difficulties in translating philosophical texts in general, with a special focus on Romanian translations of German philosophical writings. Translators of philosophical texts face a dilemma, since they are compelled to oscillate between two translation principles: that of transferring an unaltered message on the one hand, and that of preserving the style which defines the subjectivity of the text, on