Dictionary of Untranslatables

SERIES EDITOR EMILY APTER

A list of titles in the series appears at the back of the book.

Dictionary of Untranslatables A Philosophical Lexicon

EDITED BY Barbara Cassin

TRANSLATED BY Steven Rendall, Christian Hubert, Jeffrey Mehlman, Nathanael Stein, and Michael Syrotinski

TRANSLATION EDITED BY Emily Apter, Jacques Lezra, and Michael Wood

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS Princeton and Oxford

First published in under the title Vocabulaire européen des : Dictionnaire des intraduisibles © 2004 by Éditions de Seuil / Dictionnaires Le Robert English translation copyright © 2014 by Princeton University Press Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW press.princeton.edu Jacket design by Tracy Baldwin. All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Vocabulaire européen des philosophies. English Dictionary of untranslatables : a philosophical lexicon / Edited by Barbara Cassin ; Translated by Steven Rendall, Christian Hubert, Jeffrey Mehlman, Nathanael Stein, and Michael Syrotinski ; Translation edited by Emily Apter, Jacques Lezra, and Michael Wood. pages cm “First published in France under the title Vocabulaire européen des philosophies: Dictionnaire des intraduisibles (c) 2004 by Éditions de Seuil.” Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-691-13870-1 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-691-13870-2 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. --Encyclopedias. 2. Philosophy— Dictionaries--French. I. Cassin, Barbara, editor of compilation. II. Rendall, Steven, translator III. Apter, Emily S., editor of compilaton. IV. Title. B51.V6313 2013 103—dc23 2013008394 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available Publication of this book has been aided by the French Ministry of Culture—Centre National du Livre.

This work received essential support from CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique). The editors thank the following for their assistance: Fondation Charles Léopold Mayer, CNPQ (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico), and the European program ECHO (European Cultural Heritage Online). For their personal and institutional support, the editors also thank Maurice Aymard and the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Yves Duroux, the Ministère de la Recherche and the Collège International de Philosophie, Roberto Esposito, Avvocato Marotta and the Istituto per gli Studi Filosofici de Naples, Paolo Fabbri and the Institut Culturel Italien de Paris, Elie Faroult and the Direction Général de la Recherche à la Commission Européene, Michèle Gendreau-Massaloux and the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie, Yves Hersant and the Centre Europe at EHESS (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales), Yves Mabin and the Direction du Livre au Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Michel Marian and the Centre National du Livre, Georges Molinié, Jean-François Courtine, and the Université Paris IV–Sorbonne.

The article “Subject” was translated by David Macey and originally appeared in Radical Philosophy 138 (July/August 2006). Reprinted with permission. This book has been composed in Gentium Plus, Myriad Pro, ITC Zapf Dingbats Std, Mathematical Pi LT Std, Times New Roman Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Introduction

One of the most urgent problems posed by the exis- languages, returning to ancient languages (Greek, tence of Europe is that of languages. We may envisage Latin) and referring to Hebrew and Arabic whenever it two kinds of solution. We could choose a dominant was necessary in order to understand these differences. language in which exchanges will take place from To speak of untranslatables in no way implies that the now on, a globalized Anglo-American. Or we could terms in question, or the expressions, the syntactical gamble on the retention of many languages, making or grammatical turns, are not and cannot be translated: clear on every occasion the meaning and the interest the untranslatable is rather what one keeps on (not) of the differences—the only way of really facilitating translating. But this indicates that their translation, communication between languages and cultures. The into one language or another, creates a problem, to the Dictionary of Untranslatables belongs to this second per- extent of sometimes generating a neologism or impos- spective. But it looks to the future rather than to the ing a new meaning on an old word. It is a sign of the past. It is not tied to a retrospective and reified Europe way in which, from one language to another, neither (which Europe would that be, in any case?), defined the words nor the conceptual networks can simply be by an accumulation and juxtaposition of legacies that superimposed. Does one understand the same thing by would only reinforce particularities, but to a Europe in “mind” as by Geist or esprit, is pravda “justice” or “truth,” progress, fully active, energeia rather than ergon, which and what happens when we render mimesis as “repre- explores divisions, tensions, transfers, appropriations, sentation” rather than “imitation”? Each entry thus contradictions, in order to construct better versions of starts from a nexus of untranslatability and proceeds itself. to a comparison of terminological networks, whose dis- Our point of departure is a reflection on the dif- tortion creates the history and geography of languages ficulty of translating in philosophy. We have tried to and cultures. The Dictionary of Untranslatables makes ex- think of philosophy within languages, to treat philoso- plicit in its own domain the principal symptoms of dif- phies as they are spoken, and to see what then changes ference in languages. in our ways of philosophizing. This is why we have not The selection of entries arises from a double labor created yet another encyclopedia of philosophy, treat- of exploration, both diachronic and synchronic. Dia- ing concepts, authors, currents, and systems for their chrony allows us to reflect on crossings, transfers, and own sakes, but a Dictionary of Untranslatables, which forks in the road: from Greek to Latin, from ancient Latin starts from words situated within the measurable dif- to scholastic then humanist Latin, with moments of in- ferences among languages, or at least among the prin- teraction with a Jewish and an Arab tradition; from an cipal languages in which philosophy has been written ancient language to a vernacular; from one vernacular in Europe—since Babel. From this point of view, Émile to another; from one tradition, system, or philosophi- Benveniste’s pluralist and comparatist Vocabulary of cal idiom to others; from one field of knowledge and Indo-European Institutions has been our model. In order disciplinary logic to others. In this way we reencounter to find the meaning of a word in one language, this the history of concepts, while marking out the turn- book explores the networks to which the word belongs ings, fractures, and carriers that determine a “period.” and seeks to understand how a network functions in Synchrony permits us to establish a state of play by sur- one language by relating it to the networks of other veying the present condition of national philosophical languages. landscapes. We are confronted with the irreducibility of We have not explored all the words there are, or all certain inventions and acts of forgetting: appearances languages with regard to a particular word, and still without any equivalent, intruders, doublings, empty less all the philosophies there are. We have taken as our categories, false friends, contradictions, which regis- object symptoms of difference, the “untranslatables,” ter within a language the crystallization of themes and among a certain number of contemporary European the specificity of an operation. We then wonder, on the

xvii xviii INTRODUCTION

basis of the modern works that are both the cause and and a militant insistence on ordinary language com- the effect of the philosophical condition of a given lan- bine to support a prevalence of English that becomes, guage, why the terms we ordinarily consider as imme- in the worst of cases, a refusal of the status of philoso- diate equivalents have neither the same meaning nor phy to , which is mired in the the same field of application—what a thought can do in contingencies of history and individual languages. what a language can do. Neither . . . nor. The other position from which we The space of Europe was our framework from the wish to distinguish our own is the one that has led phi- beginning. The Dictionary has, in fact, a political ambi- losophy from the idea of the spirit of language, with all tion: to ensure that the languages of Europe are taken its clichés, to an “ontological nationalism” (the expres- into account, and not only from a preservationist sion is that of Jean-Pierre Lefebvre). The position finds point of view, as one seeks to save threatened species. its image in Herder, at the moment when he determines In this respect, there are two positions from which we that translation, as imitation and transplantation, is clearly distinguish our own. The first is the all-English the true vocation of the German language: “If in Italy one, or rather the all-into-English one—that official the muse converses in song, if in France she narrates English of the European Community and of scientific and reasons politely, if in Spain she imagines chival- conferences, which certainly has a practical use but is rously, in England thinks sharply and deeply, what does scarcely a language (“real” English speakers are those she do in Germany? She imitates. To imitate would thus that one has the most difficulty in understanding). be her character. . . . To this end we have in our power English has imposed itself today as an “auxiliary in- an admirable means, our language; it can be for us what ternational language,” as Umberto Eco puts it. It has the hand is for the person who imitates art” (Herder, assumed its place in the chronological sequence of Briefe). The position is also represented by a certain instrumental languages (Greek, Latin, French): it is at Heideggerian tradition of “philosophical language,” once the universal language of the cultured technoc- that is to say, the language best suited to speak faith- racy and the language of the market; we need it, for fully for being, which occupies a predominant place in better or for worse. But the philosophical situation of the history of this so Continental . English as a language deserves a slightly different ex- thinks that Western thought is born amination. In this case, English is rather in the line of less in Greece than in Greek and that only the German the characteristica universalis that Leibniz dreamed of. language rises to the level of Greek in the hierarchy Not that English can ever be reduced to a conceptual of philosophical languages, so that “untranslatabil- calculus on the model of mathematics: it is, like any ity finally becomes the criterion of truth” (Lefebvre, other, a natural language, that is to say the language “Philosophie et philologie”). “The Greek language is of a culture, magnificent in the strength of its idiosyn- philosophical, i.e., . . . it philosophizes in its basic struc- crasies. However, for a certain tendency in “analytic ture and formation. The same applies to every genuine philosophy” (it is true that no terminological precau- language, in a different degree, to be sure. The extent tion will ever suffice here, because the label applies, to which this is so depends on the depth and power of via the “linguistic turn,” even to those who teach us the existence of the people and race who speak the lan- again to question the language, from Wittgenstein to guage and exist within it. Only our German language Austin, Quine, or Cavell), philosophy relates only to a has a deep and creative philosophical character to universal logic, identical in all times and all places—for compare with the Greek” (Heidegger, Essence of Human Aristotle, for my colleague at Oxford. Consequently, Freedom). Even if it is “true” in one sense (Greek and the language in which the concept finds its expression, German words and forms are obligatory places of pas- in this case English, matters little. This first univer- sage for many articles in the Dictionary), this is not the salist assumption meets up with another. The whole truth we need. Our work is as far as could be from such Anglo-Saxon tradition has devoted itself to the exclu- a sacralization of the untranslatable, based on the idea sion of jargon, of esoteric language, to the puncturing of an absolute incommensurability of languages and of the windbags of metaphysics. English presents it- linked to the near-sanctity of certain languages. This is self, this time in its particularity as a language, as that why, marking our distance from a teleological history of common sense and shared experience, including the organized according to a register of gain and loss, we shared experience of language. The presumption of a have not conferred a special status on any language, rationality that belongs to angels rather than humans dead or alive. INTRODUCTION xix

Neither a logical universalism indifferent to lan- but an effect caught up in history and culture, and that guages nor an ontological nationalism essentializing ceaselessly invents itself—again, energeia rather than the spirit of languages: what is our position in relation ergon. So the Dictionary’s concern is constituted by lan- to these alternatives? If I had to characterize it, I would guages in their works, and by the translations of these speak Deleuzian and use the word “deterritorializa- works into different languages, at different times. The tion.” This term plays off geography against history, networks of words and senses that we have sought to the semantic network against the isolated concept. think through are networks of datable philosophical We began with the many (our plural form indicates idioms, placed by specific authors in particular writ- this: “dictionary of untranslatables”), and we remain ings; they are unique, time-bound networks, linked with the many: we have addressed the question of the to their address (exoteric or esoteric), to their level untranslatable without aiming at unity, whether it is of language, to their style, to their relation to tradi- placed at the origin (source language, tributary words, tion (models, references, palimpsests, breaks, innova- fidelity to what is ontologically given) or at the end tions). Every author, and the philosopher is an author, (Messianic language, rational community). simultaneously writes in a language and creates his or Many languages first of all. As Wilhelm von Hum- her language—as Schleiermacher says of the relation boldt stresses, “language appears in reality solely as between author and language: “He is its organ and it multiplicity” (Uber die Verschiedenheiten des menschli- is his” (“General Hermeneutics”). The untranslatable chen Sprachbaues). Babel is an opportunity, as long as we therefore is also a question of case by case. understand that “different languages are not so many Finally, there is multiplicity in the meanings of a designations of a thing: they are different perspectives word in a given language. As says in on that same thing, and when the thing is not an object L’étourdit, “A language is, among other possibilities, noth- for the external senses, those perspectives become so ing but the sum of the ambiguities that its history has many things themselves, differently formed by each allowed to persist.” The Dictionary has led us to question person” (Fragmente der Monographie über die Basken). the phenomenon of the homonym (same word, several The perspectives constitute the thing; each lan- definitions: the dog, celestial constellation and barking guage is a vision of the world that catches another animal) in which homophony (bread, bred) is only an world in its net, that performs a world; and the shared extreme case and a modern caricature. We know that world is less a point of departure than a regulatory since Aristotle and his analysis of the verb “to be” that principle. Schleiermacher throws an exemplary light it is not so easy to distinguish between homonymy and on the tension that exists between a concept, with polysemy: the sense of a word, also called “meaning” its claim to universality, and its linguistic expression, in English, the sense of touch, sens in French meaning when he asserts that in philosophy, more than in any “direction”—these represent traces of the polysemy of other domain, “any language . . . encompasses within the Latin sensus, itself a translation from the Greek nous itself a single system of concepts which, precisely be- (flair, wit, intelligence, intention, intuition, etc.), which cause they are contiguous, linking and complement- from our point of view is polysemic in a very differ- ing one another within this language, form a single ent way. Variation from one language to another allows whole—whose several parts, however, do not corre- us to perceive these distortions and semantic fluxes; it spond to those to be found in comparable systems in permits us to register the ambiguities each language other languages, and this is scarcely excluding ‘God’ carries, their meaning, their history, their intersection and ‘to be,’ the noun of nouns and the verb of verbs. with those of other languages. For even universals, which lie outside the realm of In his introduction to Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, particularity, are illumined and colored by the particu- which he considers to be “untranslatable,” Humboldt lar” (“On Different Methods of Translating”). It is that suggests that one should create a work that studies “scarcely excluding” we must underline: even God and the “synonymy of languages,” and records the fact Being are illumined and colored by language; the uni- that every language expresses a concept with a dif- versality of concepts is absorbed by the singularity of ference: “A word is so little the sign of a concept that languages. without it the concept cannot even be born, still less Multiplicity is to be found not only among lan- be stabilized; the indeterminate action of the power of guages but within each language. A language, as we thought comes together in a word as a faint cluster of have considered it, is not a fact of nature, an object, clouds gathers in a clear sky.” “Such a synonymy of the xx INTRODUCTION

principal languages . . . has never been attempted,” he each of us, drove us back to the drawing board and adds, “although one finds fragments of it in many writ- to consider from other perspectives what we thought ers, but it would become, if it was treated with intel- we knew in philosophy, of philosophy. Everyone gave ligence, one of the most seductive of works” (Aeschylos more than his or her share of time, energy, knowl- Agamemnon). This work that is among “the most seduc- edge, inventiveness, for something that expresses tive” is perhaps our Dictionary. I hope it will make per- both our friendship and our sense of adventure, and ceptible another way of doing philosophy, which does that is beyond all possible expression of gratitude. not think of the concept without thinking of the word, for there is no concept without a word. Barbara Cassin The Dictionary aims to constitute a cartography BIBLIOGRAPHY of European and some other philosophical differ- Heidegger, Martin. The Essence of Human Freedom. Translated by Ted ences by capitalizing on the knowledge and experi- Sadler. London: Continuum, 2002. ence of translators, and of those translators (histo- Herder, Johann Gottfried. Briefe zur Beförderung der Humanität. Berlin: rians, exegetes, critics, interpreters) that we are as Aufbau, 1971. philosophers. It is a working implement of a new Humboldt, Wilhelm von, trans. Aeschylos Agamemnon. Leipzig: Fleischer, 1816. kind, indispensable to the larger scientific commu- Humboldt, Wilhelm von. Fragmente der Monographie über die Basken. In nity in the process of constituting itself and also a Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 2. Berlin: Behr, 1908. guide to philosophy for students, teachers, research- ———. Uber die Verschiedenheiten des menschlichen Sprachbaues. In ers, those who are curious about their language and Werke in Fünf Bänden. Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta’sche Buchhandlung, 1963. that of others. It is also the collective work of ten Lacan, Jacques. L’étourdit. Scilicet 4 (1973). Lefebvre, Jean-Pierre. “Philosophie et philologie: Les traductions des or more years. Around a supervisory team of schol- philosophes allemands.” In Encylopaedia universalis, symposium ars—Charles Baladier, Étienne Balibar, Marc Buhot de supplement, “Les Enjeux,” vol. 1. Paris: Encylopaedia universalis, 1990. Launay, Jean-François Courtine, Marc Crépon, San- Schleiermacher, Friedrich. “General Hermeneutics.” In Hermeneutics and dra Laugier, Alain de Libera, Jacqueline Lichtenstein, Criticism and Other Writings. Translated by Andrew Bowie. Cambridge: Philippe Raynaud, Irène Rosier-Catach—it assembled Cambridge University Press, 1998. ———. “On Different Methods of Translating.” Translated by Susan Ber- more than 150 contributors, with the most varied novsky. In The Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti. linguistic and philosophical domains of competence. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2012. The truly collective work (long, difficult, frustrating, to be redone, to be continued) did in any case seduce Translated by Michael Wood