Cheerskep, you pick bad examples of linguistic overlap. How would you translate, to give just a few examples of my own from the top of my head, the German, 'Schadenfeude' into English, or capture the difference between Vorstellung and Darstellung. What about the French expression 'solution de continuite'? what are the english equivalents for the German 'zu,' or 'an' (this last example is of course a trick question: they can't mean anything outside of a context, that is outside of a prepositional verb structure, or coordination among syntactic elements. you need a whole sentence, mit einem Sinn (wie Frege sagte), in order to have even an inkling, eine Ahnung, une idee, of what they mean.
All this to say, I suppose, that although 'translations among languages' (no less from specialized to layman languages) always entails a process of deformation, foreshortening, if not outright loss. There's a reason why people try to read texts in their original languages, and if people are truly interested in the Concept-poetry of philosophy, let them learn the language. Some things, in short, do in fact find more eloquent solutions in certain languages. And we should remember that English was shaped by Empiricism just as much as by Shakespeare. And, for the record, ZF Set Theory (as well as some versions of category theory) are making their way back into philosophical discourse, formalisms and all. On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 8:42 PM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Geoff writes: > > "I can understand a German-speaker's belief > that no English word quite expresses what he understands in the German word > "X"." > > If you know three or four people fluent in both English and German, ask > them > how they would translate these four words: > > Cigar, soap, tooth, shoe. > > See if every one of them doesn't say: > > "Zigarre, Seife, Zahn, Schuh." > > Go on to prepositions and conjunctions. Don't expect any of them to claim > 'und' is not synonymous with 'and'. Words are my turf. I'd love to see them > all > glorified as unique. But that's baloney. > > In truth, I hate how custom made, specialized, the philosophers have tried > to > make their language. It makes stuff inscrutable to non-academics, and that > shouldn't be. I'm pleased to notice what I think is a sharp decline in > recent > years in the use of the symbols of mathematical logic in philosophical > journals. > > But wait, am I being inconsistent? "Be rigorous but be readable?" No, I > don't > think I am. It's hard, but it can be done to a useful degree. > An essential required gift is good ability to see where the reader can go > wrong. I used to say in a self-aggrandizing way, "I work and work and work > on a > piece till I've got it where it seems like it took no work at all." (Not > the > pieces on this forum, I admit!) What I was largely aiming at was silently > side-stepping confusing verbal misteps while discussing complicated > notions. > > Some of the best philosophers are celebrated for their writing "style", and > that's the way it should be. David Hume, and, often, Bertrand Russell, were > none the less rigorous for making their work "accessible" to the layman > where > they could. I honestly believe that the pursuit of linguistic "rigor" has > often > been literally counter-productive in philosophy, and, paradoxically, > perhaps > most woefully in academic philosophers themselves. The devising of "terms > of > art" like 'epistemic' and 'the aesthetic' (where 'aesthetic' is a noun) > has > made for more muddlement than clarification in philosophy. > > The later Wittgenstein, despite putting forth some of the most bizarrely > novel philosophical ideas, worked hard, and often successfully, to frame > them in > something very like "kitchen-table" lingo. If he often failed, it had > less to > do with his language than with the fact that certain key notions of his > were > muddled or incomplete. But all of us have those. > > > > ************** > New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. > Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out > (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002)
