From the mailbag:
What are your thoughts on reading philosophical texts in the original language? Do you think it's preferable -- or do you suppose it even makes a difference? The idea of reading philosophy in the original is very interesting to me, because I've found that when you study texts in the history of philosophy at a university you'll for the most part be reading them in translation -- whereas whatever department is in charge of teaching the language in which the text was originally written usually will not offer it if it is too technical or specialized to be of general interest.
Without a doubt it is better to read philosophical texts in their original languages than in translation. And if one is planning to do any serious, potentially publishable, work on a philosopher then it it is absolutely essential to be able to read the philosopher in the original. One reason is that translations are sometimes misleading or inaccurate. For example, E. B. Ashton's translation of T. W. Adorno's Negative Dialektik mistranslates Vermittlung (mediation) as 'transmission.' Ashton knows German, but he doesn't know philosophical German. To translate Adorno it does not suffice to know German, one must also have read Kant, Hegel and Co. Had he known his Hegel, Ashton would have realized that Vermittlung is an Hegelian word, that it is used by Adorno in a sense very close to the Hegelian one, and that it therefore ought to be translated as 'mediation.'
Heidegger is another who is difficult to understand in translation. Crucial to his thinking is the so-called ontological difference, the difference between das Sein and das Seiende. A translator who knows German but does not know Heidegger may make the egregious blunder of translating both as 'being.' Examples can be multiplied.
It requires a lot of time and effort to get to the point where one can study philosophical texts in the original. And the farther back in history one goes, the harder it becomes. To understand Kant, for example, it is not enough to know German, you must know the German of his day. And given that he wrote his early works in Latin, and had Latin equivalents in mind for many of his German philosophical terms, some knowledge of Latin is also necessary to fully discern the sense of his theses.
Ideally, one would be able to read Greek, Latin, French, and German with ease. But he who spends all his time on languages will have little time left over for philosophy proper, which is not the study of texts but the study of the world. The danger is that one will become a mere scholar who conflates philosophy with the history of philosophy. This is one of the differences between the Continental/Historical approach and the Analytic approach. Now I don't want to downplay the obvious faults of so many analytic philosophers: their ignorance of foreign languages, their ignorance of history (both 'real' history and the history of ideas), and of high culture generally. One name analyst implied in print that the music of John Lennon was on the level of that of Mozart. There are Ph.D.s in philosophy who have never read a Platonic dialogue, and whose dissertations are based solely on the latest ephemera in the journals. Here, as elsewhere, ignorance breeds arrogance. They think they know what they don't know. They think they know what key theses in Kant and Brentano and Meinong mean when they have never studied their texts. And, not knowing foreign languages, they cannot determine whether or not the available translations are accurate. Not knowing the sense of these theses, they read into them contemporary notions. And if you told them that this amounts to eisegesis, they wouldn't know what you are talking about.
So 'the analysts,' to lump them together, have plenty of faults, but one fault they don't have is the tendency to conflate philosophy with the history of philosophy. We don't find them genuflecting before texts or succumbing to the cult of personality the way Continental types are apt to do. These sketchy remarks will of course infuriate both the Continental/Historical types and the Analysts. Well, good: one ought to be a maverick. My present point, to sum this up, is that while it is good to be historically informed and to study the great texts in their original languages, one ought not let this get in the way of thinking for oneself and tackling the issues and problems of philosophy head-on. After all, part of what made the great thinkers great was precisely that they thought for themselves and didn't content themselves with studying and commenting on the texts of others.
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