Abstract
The conference “On the Different Methods of Translating” presented by Schleiermacher before the Academy of Berlin on the 24th of June 1813 clearly reveals a confluence of its author’s multiplicity of interests: his activity as a translator (Plato’s Dialogues), his courses on Ethics, Hermeneutics, Psychology or Aesthetics, his expertise as a philologist, and above all his endeavors in the field of Dialectics.
In his courses on Dialectics, Schleiermacher deals thoroughly with the topic of the “irrationality” between languages which constitutes the starting point of his argumentation in the 1913 conference. In those courses he also develops a theory of images and language which sets the fundamentals for his option for the method of translating which moves the reader in the direction of the author.
To conclude, the present paper shows that not only does Dialectics constitute the basis of Schleiermacher’s propositions on translation, but also that the translator’s place as a mediator between languages is in total homology with the subject of the dialectical task, which is the resolution (and “construction”) of difference between the “representations in dispute”.
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- 1.
For references, see notes 3 and 7.
- 2.
- 3.
For the present purposes, I will use Rudolph Odebrecht’s edition, Friedrich Schleiermachers Dialektik: im Auftrage der Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften auf Grund bisher unveröffentlichen Materials, Leipzig, 1942 (reproduction, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1988), henceforth referred to as Dial, followed by page numbers; the translation into English is mine.
- 4.
Schleiermacher clarifies the terminology used in this definition of dialectics: “Thinking is here taken as the most general designation of the spiritual function, in its largest sense, in such a way that under this designation one will not only understand what is [commonly] called thinking in a strict sense, by means of language, but also the representing [das Vorstellen] or the connecting of sensible impressions or images and objects or facts, and consequently also what we call the activity of imagination is not put here in opposition to thinking, but it is conceived as being part of it” (Dial, 5). A little further on Schleiermacher says: “The expression pure thinking is defined in the distinction between it and the thinking of business and the thinking of arts, as far as there is no other direction in which thinking takes place besides these three. […] Now, on one side, pure thinking is distinguished from that of business as being motivated not by a thing but by thinking itself, and, on the other side, from artistic thinking by the fact that it is not circumscribed to the temporary action of the subject, namely of the thinking individual, and consequently does not have its [evaluative] measure in the satisfaction produced by its own accomplishment in time” (Dial, 5–7). Schleiermacher still adds that “pure thinking” relates to “knowing”, as far as “knowing” is “the same in all” of us (Dial, 7). There is then a perfect homology between this tripartite distinction and the one which underlies the opening part of the lecture “On the Different Methods…” The activity of the interpreter – the “Dolmetscher” – takes the “thinking of business” as its object; the activity of the translator proper takes as its object “knowing” (or “science”) – which is part of “pure thinking” – and the “artistic thinking”.
- 5.
In a text entitled “Über Leibnitz unausgeführt gebliebenen Gedanken einer allgemeinen philosophischen Sprache” (SW, 3-III, 138–149), Schleiermacher expresses his conviction that there is only a partial possibility of a unified philosophical language. This conviction is consistent with his opinion on the subject expressed, for instance, in the Dialectics, in the Courses on Ethics (in particular in the so-called Brouillon zur Ethik – 1805–1806) and even in the lecture “On the Different Methods…”, when he refers to the role of Latin in medieval philosophy.
- 6.
In fact, the German word is not “Nachahmung” but “Nachbildung”.
- 7.
This division of Dialectics can be found in the course of 1822 – the one I have been using – as well as in the course of 1814 (the so-called Grundheft according to Jonas). This last version has been edited with an extensive introduction by Manfred Frank: Friedrich Schleiermacher, Dialektik, herausgegeben und eingeleitet von Manfred Frank, Bd. I, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 2001. The same division of Dialectics is to be found in the edition prepared by Isidor Halpern – with the explicit intention of getting as close as possible to “the ideal of [Schleirmacher’s] Dialectics” – and published in 1903: Schleiermachers Dialektik mit Unterstützung der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, herausgegeben von Dr. I. Halpern, Berlin: Mayer & Müller, 1903. But it is interesting to notice that the division was already present in the course from 1811: the notes by Twesten register a “Transzendentaler Teil”, and what is known of Schleiermacher’s manuscript ends with a section called “Formaler Teil”; see Schleiermacher (1986).
Works Cited
Friedrich Schleiermachers Dialektik, herausgegeben und eingeleitet von Manfred Frank. Bd. I. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. 2001.
Friedrich Schleiermachers Dialektik: im Auftrage der Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften auf Grund bisher unveröffentlichen Materials, herausgegeben von Rudolph Odebrecht. Leipzig, 1942 (reproduction, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1988); abbreviated as Dial.
Schleiermachers Dialektik mit Unterstützung der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, herausgegeben von Dr. I. Halpern. Berlin: Mayer & Müller, 1903.
Schleiermacher, Friedrich. 1834–1864. Ueber die verschiedenen Methoden des Uebersezens (sic). In Friedrich Schleiermacher’s sämmtliche Werke, ed. Herausgegeben von G. Reimer. Berlin, Section 3 (“Zur Philosophie”), Vol. II, 207–245, abbreviated as SW 3-II.
Schleiermacher, F.D.E. 1986. Dialektik (1811), herausgegeben von Andreas Arndt. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag.
Schleiermacher, Friedrich. 2007. On the different methods of translating. In The translation studies reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti, 2nd ed., 43–63. Trans. S. Bernofsky. New York/London: Routledge, abbreviated as Methods.
Venuti, Lawrence (ed.). 2007. The translation studies reader, 2nd ed, 43–63. New York/London: Routledge.
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Justo, J.M. (2016). Friedrich Schleiermacher: A Theory of Translation Based on Dialectics. In: Seruya, T., Justo, J. (eds) Rereading Schleiermacher: Translation, Cognition and Culture. New Frontiers in Translation Studies. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-47949-0_1
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