Seeing Things

One quick comment (I don’t have the texts in front of me). I would render the two German phrases near the end “natural conception of the world” and “lifeworld” (no hyphen), respectively. “Lived world” obscures the reference to Husserl’s famous and familiar term, and hyphens are going the way of the dinosaurs.

Thanks, Taylor - that’s helpful. In MP’s French text he leaves the German phrases untranslated, but I think it will be good to give readers some sense for how to understand the German. One question, though: what is the German word from Husserl that normally gets translated “lived world?” I thought it was “Lebenswelt.” It’s especially important to get clear on this since MP talks earlier in the paragraph of “le monde ‘vécus’,” which I’ve translated as “the lived world.” If that doesn’t reflect what’s going on in his reference to “Lebenswelt,” then that’s important to know.

Yes, I mean the locution “lived world” could obscure the fact that MP is simply translating “Lebenswelt” into French. Since we already translate “Lebenswelt” as “lifeworld” in Husserl, I think it makes sense to stick with that term, since, after all, it points to what MP was talking about.

Ah, I see. But is “lifeworld” the unique and standard translation for “Lebenswelt” in Husserl now? I seem to remember having seen “lived world” in lots of places. And the participle “lived” does seem to give a more active sense to the word than the noun “life,” something that surely reflects what Husserl was after. I agree that we should be consistent and choose either one or the other; one of the faults of my translation so far is that it lacks this consistency. So that’s already an improvement thanks to your suggestion. But what is the reason for preferring “lifeworld” as the consistent choice?

Only that it’s a literal and direct rendering of “Lebenswelt” (bypassing MP’s French). Not a knock-down argument, I admit.

Again, some non-philosophical comments. You may want to exercise the liberty of changing some of the punctuation, so that the reader can breathe a bit more easily . Some of MP’s sentences run on, and they lose rhythm and force. So, if you are thinking of changing the paragraphing, to improve readability, why not change some of the punctuation, for the same purpose? As long as the meaning doesn’t change. What this could mean for the first paragraph is this, just a few changes: (1) Put a period after “natural attitude” (line 8) and start the next sentence with “But…” (which is widely accepted). (2) Put a period after “may provide” (line 15) and begin the next sentence with “And…” (also widely accepted). (3) Put a period after “phenomenology” (second to last line on page 1) and begin the next sentence with “The…” (clearly OK). MP seems to be “thinking out loud”, and his thoughts run on - he maybe even is discovering some of his thoughts as he goes on. And that’s OK. But adding a few more periods, and the like, here and there, would improve the flow, and would also be more consistent with what seems to be your own natural style, which has so many nice, warm, relatively short assertive statements.

Tom - Thanks again. These are also very useful suggestions. I wonder what you’ll think, though, when you find out what I’ve already done. Each of your proposals amounts to the seemingly minor suggestion that I turn a semicolon into a period. But in each of these cases the semicolon was already a compromise. That’s because in the original French each of these semicolons was actually a comma. Now, I certainly don’t think that turning a comma into a period - at least in these examples - changes the meaning of the sentence. And I agree that your version is much more elegant. But is it your sense that this is also widely accepted? If so, I will gladly make the changes. And even if not I’d like to consider them very seriously. But what’s your sense of the accepted principle here?

Sean - I don’t know what’s “widely accepted” in translation with respect to punctuation. But I think you should lay out your goals clearly, be honest about what you are doing to achieve those goals, and then do it. It seems to me one goal is to accurately render the words and the meanings. Another, to capture the feeling, the flavor, the nuances. Another, to make it work, as a clear and enjoyable read in English. Another, to be true to your own style and understanding of what is really going on in MP. And if you fess up to all that, for example, and then produce a translation that is readable and accurate and enjoyable in the English, well, that would be pretty good. Maybe you should view yourself as a translator-editor, with the editing limited to readability issues, like paragraphing and punctuation within the paragraphs. I would not add section titles, unless MP had them. I wouldn’t even guess where the section titles (if that’s what they are) that you spoke about in another entry should go, unless MP explicitly placed them in the text somewhere. But changing the paragraphing and punctuation in ways that do not affect the meanings, but that do improve the readability - what can be wrong with that? I don’t think you should take liberties with the words or phrases. (If MP were alive and you were his editor, you could suggest changes to the words and phrases that he might accept. But he is not alive, and the text, ie the words and the phrases, are what they are.) But changing the paragraphs and punctuation in ways that do not affect the meaning, why not? Of course, some of the meaning may be carried by the very ongoing-ness of his long paragraphs and his winding around style. And if you break it up too much, you might do violence to the very nature of his thought. But a little here and a little there, to make it work better in English, while also preserving much of the connectedness and maybe even the sinewy-ness, might be great. You probably want to make sure some of your philosophy colleagues, and the publisher, are comfortable with this approach. But I suggest you be explicit about your 5-8 goals and about what you are going to do to achieve them, and then build some agreement that the goals and the approaches (and some examples of the resulting text) are acceptable.

On another matter, which IS about the words: “life world” versus “lived world” seem to me to be very different, and not just in style. “Life world” says something about the world itself, within which life takes place. Whereas “lived world” says something about the world as it is experienced by the creatures that live in it. The German seems to be “life world”, so maybe that is the accurate way to go. Although, MP, who wrote in French, may have understood the German to be “lived world”, or may have used it in that way regardless of what he understood the German to mean. I can’t judge that. But I agree with the comment made by someone else in the earlier entry, ie that “life world” might be the more accurate rendition,.

Tom - Thanks again. Many more sensible and useful suggestions. I will certainly try to make a list of the principles that are guiding my translation - that’s a great idea. Three jump to mind, and they more or less mirror the ones you mentioned: 1) to preserve the meaning of the original; 2) to create a readable and enjoyable English text; and 3) to preserve, as much as possible consistent with the other principles, the feeling, nuance, and style of MP’s prose. I’ll try to think of others. Further suggestions appreciated!

As to the issue of how to translate Lebenswelt. It is certainly true that “lifeworld” is the most literal translation. It’s also true that le monde vecu, which appears earlier in that paragraph, is accurately translated as “lived world.” Furthermore, it seems undeniable that MP, in using the phrase le monde vecu, means to be referencing Husserl’s notion of Lebenswelt. Finally, it is definitely right that lifeworld and lived world have very different connotations in English. I can’t see any way of respecting all these facts simply by making translation choices. I suppose the thing to do is to translate them all literally, and then put a footnote to MP’s phrase indicating its relation to Husserl’s. The basic problem, it seems to me, is that Husserl used the wrong word for the phenomenon that he was trying to name. Furthermore, MP seems to have gotten the phenomenon right when translated Husserl’s word, albeit inaccurately, into French. But it is after all Husserl’s right to choose his words as he will, and it is certainly the translator’s responsibility to respect that choice.

You definitely shouldn’t hesitate to break long sentences up into shorter ones, if doing so improves readability. Again, Kemp Smith did this with Kant (and we can all be grateful that he did). Moreover, there are stylistic differences across languages, and (at least since Hemingway) good English/American prose tends to favor short, direct sentences. MP shouldn’t sound exactly like Hemingway, of course — but neither should he sound like Henry James.

Also, for what it’s worth, I agree that colloquial phrasing is preferable to formal constructions. Moreover, I don’t think duplicating word order is important in itself. Word order is highly idiosyncratic to different languages, and translations often read, well, like translations (ack) precisely because the translator hasn’t found the phrasing that’s natural to the target language. (This may be more of an issue translating from German to English, since German relies heavily on fairly arbitrary inversions, which are often not available in English.) I think a better strategy is to get your mind around the proposition in question (the clause or the sentence), and then write it as you would in English, preserving as much of the original vocabulary and syntax as you comfortably can.

(Trivial examles include “mais” and “alors.” It often makes no difference at all, beyond how natural it sounds, whether you say, “But this such-and-such …” or “This such-and-such, however …” Or “Therefore this such-and-such …” or “This such-and-such, then, …” Etc.)

Thanks Taylor. As I get into it I’m feeling more and more comfortable with these kinds of choices; but all these suggestions are definitely helping to ground me also.

The thing about word order is very interesting to me. I’m sure you are right that in German, or in other fully inflected languages like Greek or Latin, word order plays a different role than in English. As a result, duplicating it can be not only unimportant, but futile. What’s important in those cases is to find some way of rendering the English so that it reflects the stresses and emphases of the original; and this might mean precisely not duplicating the word order. But in French and Spanish (and probably in the other Romance languages too, which are not fully inflected) my sense is that following the word order might be a bit more important. There are certainly the kinds of trivial examples you mentioned where there is plenty of room for play. But there are other cases where word order might indicate something interesting. For instance, MP often puts subordinate clauses in slightly surprising places. I’ve tried both moving the clauses around so that they’re more natural in the English and also leaving them in place. Sometimes, but not always, the difference in emphasis gives you a very different sense for how the thing should read. The upshot, I think, is that although I had intended to go more for readability - and thus for less emphasis on reproducing word order - I’m noticing more how that can make a real difference. Again, it doesn’t seem like there are any hard and fast rules. But the art of the thing is fascinating…

You’ve done a beautiful job on the Preface. Just a quick comment on the opening sentence to page iii which reads:

‘Science does not, and never will, have the same understanding of being that the perceived world does…’

It strikes me as odd to talk of the perceived world as having an understanding of being. Surely it is we as perceivers that have an understanding of being. This awkwardness doesn’t arise if we say “science has an understanding of being” since it is fairly natural to read “science” as elliptical for “scientific practice”. However I can’t find a reading that helps me make sense of how the perceived world has an understanding of being. Maybe the difficulty I am having here is solved by your reading of MP’s notion of “seeing things”?