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#Post#: 6--------------------------------------------------
On Translation
By: StircrazyReality Date: July 16, 2017, 10:40 pm
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As philosophers who speak English, we will have fundamental
difficulty working with concepts created in another language.
Translation already contains an interpretedness. We are at the
mercy of translators. How do we approach this in our study?
Take 'Logos' an example pertinent to the study of many of our
members. Xavier recently brought up that in a core text for the
study of pre-socratics, Logos has often been translated in
specific ways (perhaps Xavier can expand on this).
I want to refer to Heidegger's brief comment on translation. It
harkens back to what we studied of Idle Talk during semester
(p105 of our reader) , namely that language already contains an
interpretedness of... what it talks about.
"Aoyos gets 'translated' (and this means that it is always
getting
interpreted) as "reason", "judgment", "concept", "definition",
"ground",
or "relationship"."
Those of us reading Heidegger are reading something originally
German.
Ruell is doing academic study of the Bible, originally in
Hebrew.
I am reading Buddhist Sutra's originally in Pali.
When reading Soren Kierkegaard, we will be reading something
originally in Danish.
Translation is a fundamental issue of our study, and if we take
for granted English versions of texts, we lose something core to
the concepts and texts we are working with.
I spent yesterday trying to understanding a seemingly
paradoxical passage of a text, in which 'rapture' is said to be
a ground, a preliminary for 'pleasure', yet 'rapture' is defined
as 'intense pleasure'. These words also bring along connotations
that were not there in the original Pali, 'pleasure' has a lot
of connotations in English, many of which miss the purity of the
context of meditation.
I also noticed during semester that reading different
translations of Being and Time gives different colour to
concepts, for example one translation gives 'speech', and
another gives 'discourse'. Speech is so much more loose than
discourse, speech feels more idle and discourse feels more
directed and dynamic.
My question to open up is, how to we approach translation?
#Post#: 7--------------------------------------------------
Re: On Translation
By: xavierhn Date: July 17, 2017, 12:49 am
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Logos (Λόγος) gives us a particularly
good example of how translation and interpretation go together.
I've laid out three places that show how translation and
interpretation go together. The first, is the 'traditional' take
on logos as 'giving an account' as in providing a rationale;
which, in turn, lends itself to be seen as diverging out into
logic as argumentation and validity, with the other, with
assertion as judgment.
The second, and more nuanced we can call a 'primordial' reading
of logos. Primordial as in more basic and fundamental than the
others. This is Heidegger's translation/interpretation, that has
two places and differs.
Being and Time.
1) Logos is connected to Aristotle's definition of speech as
apophainesthai, meaning in speaking we allow something to be
seen, for ourselves and others, meaning we make manifest that
which we talk about as it is.
2) Letting something be seen shows the structure of synthesis in
Logos, by showing us the togetherness of things, in showing
something as something and not nothing.
3) Truth now enters with 'letting something be seen' in the
Greek sense of aletheia, meaning to bring out of concealment, to
let something be seen from its unconcealed state, i.e., discover
it.
4) Logos does not equal truth, but relies on something prior
which is related to the Greek term 'noein' meaning
'straightforward apprehension', eytmologically it is close to
scent as in that which we detect immediately. We usually
translate 'noein' as 'thinking'. Thus, logos brings out neoin in
that the true sense of things as they are reveal themselves.
5) Thus we can define the function of logos as Heidegger says "
in letting something be seen straightforwardly, in letting
beings be apprehended, logos can mean reason". This,
furthermore, acquires the meaning of 'ground' or in Latin
'ratio', as that which is already present as the basis for
discourse as such.
6) The final point, similar to 'togetherness' is the relatedness
of logos in that by letting something be seen it shows the
relationship with and a relating to something.
Now onto, Heidegger's later essay. We see all six points come
together in eloquence: Logos is defined as 'that which gathers
all present beings into presencing and lets them lie before us'.
This comes to be a reflection and criticism of the Greeks,
namely Heraclitus. In that, the essence of language is
experienced but not thought expressly (Heidegger, 77). In
short, we see that Logos is primarily linked to language as
such, an essential part of what it means to be captured by
language and how it speaks to us about how beings are.
Here are the references as quotes.
Here's an excerpt from the Penguin books Early Greek Philosophy,
the reader for the Presocratic Philosophy unit to show this
point.
[quote]The fourth illustrative example is the concept of logos.
The word logos is even harder to translate than arche. [logos]
is cognate with the verb legein, which normally means 'to say'
or 'to state'. Thus a logos is something said or stated. When
Heraclitus begins this book with a reference to 'this logos', he
probably means only 'this statement' or 'this account': his
logos is simply what he is going to say. But the word also has a
richer meaning; to give a logos or an account of something is
indeed to describe it, to say what it is; but it is also to
explain it, to say why it is what it is. Thence, by an
intelligible transference, logos comes to be used of the human
faculty which enables us to offer explanations or reasons for
thing: logos may mean 'reason'. In this sense logos may be
contrasted with perception, so that Parmenides, for example, can
urge his readers to test his argument not by their sense but by
logos, by reason. (The English term 'logic' derives ultimately
from this sense of the word logos, by way of the later Greek
term logike
The Presocratics never imposed a single and clear sense on the
term logos, and it would be exaggerated to contend that they
invented the concept of reason or of rationality. But their use
of logos constituted the first step towards the delineation of a
notion which is central to science and philosophy. [/quote]page
xxiii
Compare this with two places from Heidegger, the first Being and
Time and Early Greek Thinking (a collection of short essays from
the 1940s).
[quote]If we say that the basic meaning of logos is speech, this
literal translation becomes valid only when we define what
speech itself means... Even if logos is understood in the sense
of a statement, and statement as "judgement", this apparently
correct translation can still miss the fundamental
meaning--especially if judgment is understood in the sense of
contemporary "theory of judgment". Logos does not mean judgment,
in any case not primarily, if by judgment we understand
"connecting two things" or "taking a position" either by
endorsing or rejecting.
Rather, logos as speech really means deloun, to make manifest
"what is being talked about" in speech. Aristotle explicates
this function of speech more precisely as apophainesthai.
Logos lets something be seen (phainesthai), namely what is
being talked about, and indeed for the speaker (who serves as
the medium) or for those who speak with each other.
Speech "lets us see", from itself, apo . . ., what is being
talked about. In speech (apophansis, insofar as it is genuine,
what is said should be derived from what is being talked about.
In this way spoken communication, in what it says, makes
manifest what it is talking about and thus makes it accessible
to another. Such is the structure of logos and apophansis. Not
every "speech" suits this mode of making manifest, in the sense
of letting something be seen by indicating it[...]
Only because the function of logos as apophansis lies in letting
something be seen by indicating it can logos have the structure
of synthesis. Here synthesis does not mean to connect and
conjoin representations, to manipulate psychical occurrences,
which then gives rise to the "problem" of how these connections,
as internal, correspond to what is external and phyiscal. the
syn [of synthesis] here has a purely apophantical meaning: to
let something be seen in its togetherness with something, to let
something be seen as something.
Furthermore, because logos lets something be seen, it can
therefore be true or false.
But evetything depends on staying clear of any concept of truth
construed in the sense of "correspondence" or "accordance"
[Ubereinstimmung]. This idea is by no means the primary one in
the concept of aletheia [Greek for truth]. The "being true" of
logos as aletheuein
means: to take beings that are being talked about in legein as
apophainesthai
out of their concealment; to let them be seen as something
unconcealed (alethes); to discover them. Similarly "being
false", psuedesthai is tantamount to deceiving in the senf of
covering up: putting something in front of something else (by
way of letting it be seen_ and thereby proffering it as
something it is not.
But because "truth" has this meaning, and logos is a specific
mode of letting something be seen,logos simply may not be
acclaimed as the primary "place" of truth. If one defines truth
as what "properly" pertains to judgment, which is quite
customary today, and if one invokes Aristotle in support of this
thesis, such invocation is without justification and the Greek
concept of truth thoroughly misunderstood. In the Greek sense
what is "true" -- indeed more originally true thanlogos we have
been discussing -- is aisthesis, the straightforward sensuous
apprehending of something. To the extent that an aisthesis aims
at its idia [what is its own] -- the beings genuinely accessible
only through it and for it, for example looking
at colors -- apprehending is always true. This means that
looking always discovers colours, hearing always discovers
tones. What is in the purest and most sense "true" -- that is,
what only discovers in such a way that it can never cover up
anything -- is pure noein [usually translated as 'thinking'],
straightforwardly observant apprehension of the simplest
determinations of the Being of beings as such. This noein can
never cover up, can never be false; at worst it can be a
nonapprehending,agnoein, not sufficing for straightforward,
appropriate access.
What no longer takes the form of a pure letting be seen, but
rather in its indicating always has recourse to something else
and so always lets something be seen as something, acquires a
structure so synthesis and therewith the possibility of covering
up. However, "truth of judgment" is only the opposite of this
covering up; it is a multiply-founded phenomenon of truth.
Realism and idealism alike thoroughly miss the meaning of the
Greek concept of truth from which alone the possibility of
something like a "theory of Ideas" can be understood at all as
philosophical knowledge. And because the function of logos lies
in letting something be seen straightforwardly, in letting
beings be apprehended, logos can mean reason.
Moreover, because logos is used in the senf not only of legein
but also of legomenon--what is pointed to as such; and because
the latter is nothing other than the hypokeimenon--what always
already is at hand at the basis of every discourse and
discussion in progress;
for these reasons logos qua legomenon means ground, ration.
Finally, because logos as legomenon can also mean what is
addressed, as something that has become visible in its relation
to something else, in its "relatedness" logos acquires the
meaning of a relationship with and a relating to something.
This interpretation of "apophantic speech" may suffice to
clarify the primary function of logos[/quote]
Now lets compare with Heidegger's take on 'logos' in his essay
Logos (Heraclitus, Fragment B 50)
[quote][The Logos] names that which gathers all present beings
into presencing and lets them lie before us in it.[The Logos]
names that in which the presencing of what is present comes to
pass. The presencing of present beings the Greeks call
τό έόν, that is,τό
είναι όντων,
in Latin, esse entium.
We say the Being of beings.[/quote]
[quote]Ο Λόγος, τό
Λέγειν [logos and legein] is the
Laying that gathers. But at the same time [legein] means for the
Greeks to lay before, to exhibit, to tell to say. [The Logo]
then would be the Greek name for speaking, saying, and language.
Not only this. [The Logos], thought as the Laying that gathers,
would be the essence of saying [die Sage] as thought by the
Greeks, Language would be saying. Language would be the
gathering letting-lie-before of what is present in its
presencing.
In fact, the Greeks dwelt in this essential determination of
language. But they never thought it -- Heraclitus included.
The Greeks do experience saying in this way. But, Heraclitus
included, they never think essence of language expressly as the
[Logos], as the Laying that gathers. [/quote] page 77.
#Post#: 8--------------------------------------------------
Re: On Translation
By: xavierhn Date: July 17, 2017, 1:00 am
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With 'translation' this can obscure things, at least with
philosophy. There is only one language of philosophy and that is
ancient Greek. For example, even when Heidegger writes in
German, his thinking is with Greek language as such, take any of
his works and you will see that his thinking is with Greek
language and what that means. This is no less true for any
philosopher after the Greeks - Descartes, Kant, Hegel. Most of
the time, Latin translations of Aristotle's reading and terms
dominate, and are in turn, called as the language of philosophy:
'reality', 'knowledge', 'truth', 'logic' ... these are doubled
translations, first from greek into latin, (often neglected but
essential to untangle) then into a national language german,
english, french, and in the first sense from the thinking of the
Greeks, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle into Medieval
conceptions of Aristotle and then into 'contemporary
perspectives' that are usually bad readings of Kant and Hegel.
Heidegger gives a beautiful illustration of this when he says
that the Greek language is logos.
Mitchell, for the other examples you give of the Bible and your
own work, I would like to hear your thoughts on them.
#Post#: 12--------------------------------------------------
Re: On Translation
By: StircrazyReality Date: July 17, 2017, 9:38 pm
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With my own work on reading Pali Sutras, I find that translation
obscures key aspects of meaning.
An example that I always like to use is a passage translated
into english as: 'the thoughts stopped, then the thought
occurred'. Thought is not central in Buddhist meditation, yet in
English, it is hard to refer to insight that is not thought.
After all, the whole of philosophy (which is Western) is built
on thinking. A better translation could be, 'The thoughts
stopped, then it occurred'. This refers to insight.
Reading the original text in Pali is the primary reason I am
learning Sanskrit (a mother language of Pali).
I know very very little about the bible. I simply note that a
translation I am looking at, there are many notes that say
"probable reading of the Hebrew'. Perhaps Ruell would be able to
say more, as he is learning Hebrew.
#Post#: 13--------------------------------------------------
Re: On Translation
By: StircrazyReality Date: July 17, 2017, 9:45 pm
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I am still interested in what it is we lose when reading
translations. Obviously a majority of readers of any text will
not go out of their way to transcend the limits of translation
by learning the original language. For my part however, I do not
feel comfortable with taking my understanding of a text up to
the highest level when I am relying on translation.
I am reminded of a talk given by Rick Benitez on Meno's Slave
boy sometime last year. It was one of the motivators for my
desire to learn languages. He said that 'Meno's slave boy' has
become a standard aspect of reading a certain greek text,
however the original words make no reference to age or gender of
the slave, it could just easily be translated as an old slave
maid.
Are these just inconsequential examples however? Perhaps I do
not need to be so worried about translation.
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