Tuesday, 20 September 2016

Anthony Pym interacts with the German philosopher Martin Heidegger on the subjects of language and translation:

We do not speak a language, the language speaks us. We become vehicles for the words and concepts that have been handed down to us across the centuries; the ideas of our cultural ancestors pass trough us. This idea is like what biological evolutionists say about us being vehicles for the transmission of genes, rather than the genes being ways in which we transmit ourselves. In this context, Heidegger insists that a translation (Üaut;bersetzung) is not just an interpretation of a previous text but also a handing-down, a quesyion of legacy. Heidegger gives the past more value than the present, and the task of translation - like that of philosophy itself - would be to recuperate lost or suppressed knowledge.