http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/ Seeing Things is a blog devoted to issues concerning the philosophy, phenomenology, and cognitive neuroscience of perception, and especially to translation issues concerning Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Phénoménologie de la Perception. en Copyright 2008 Mon, 13 Mar 2006 09:37:26 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=1.03 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss I’ve been traveling for a couple of weeks and so haven’t been able to attend to the blog as carefully as I’d like. But I’m back now and am gratified to see the level of activity in the comments. From a quick perusal I can see that not everyone is so sympathetic to my views. That’s fine - indeed it’s the people who disagree with me that I’ll likely have the most to learn from! I look forward to going through the comments carefully, and will try to write some responses over the next few days. I may not get to respond to everything, but I’ll try. In the meantime, I’ll also try to put up some new substantive posts, and will look forward to further comments.

]]> http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/03/back_from_traveling.html http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/03/back_from_traveling.html About the Blog Mon, 13 Mar 2006 09:37:26 -0500 Ok, ok. I’m sure the suspense is killing you. I promised in my last post that I would reveal a surprising and amazing fact about the relation between Merleau-Ponty and Husserl, as MP understood it. And I’ve left the issue hanging for almost a week now. So here it is…

]]> http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/02/augustine_and_phenomenology_1.html http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/02/augustine_and_phenomenology_1.html Interpretation issues Tue, 21 Feb 2006 15:41:48 -0500 Two weeks ago I posted about MP’s view of the relationship between Husserl and Heidegger. (See post here.) The issue there was in what context to read MP’s claim that “all of Sein und Zeit springs from an indication in Husserl.” I claimed that what he really meant was that Heidegger’s methodology, though not necessarily his philosophical views, spring from Husserl. And I also claimed that “spring from” (est sorti de) really means “develops out of.” At least that’s what I intended to be saying there. The idea was that MP is not claiming, as some people propose, that Husserl already thought of everything Heidegger said. He’s claiming, instead, that if you give a “strong” reading of Husserl, then you can see that his late works ought to push him in the direction of the hermeneutic methodology that Heidegger employs in Being and Time; and they ought to do this whether Husserl understood it or not. This way of understanding MP’s view of the relation between Husserl and Heidegger sits well, I believe, with the interpretive principles he lays down in his essay on Husserl, “The Philosopher and his Shadow” (published in Signs.) In this post and the next I would like to discuss two more reasons for thinking this is the right way to understand what MP is up to in the Preface.

]]> http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/02/essence_and_existence.html http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/02/essence_and_existence.html Wed, 15 Feb 2006 07:20:37 -0500 Well, here’s a very preliminary draft of a translation of the Preface. The footnotes are all translations of MP’s footnotes, but the endnotes and the comments are all translators notes, including a number of substantive notes that discuss issues concerning translational, interpretational, and philosophical issues. Comments welcome…

]]> http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/02/preface_1.html http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/02/preface_1.html Translation Drafts Sun, 12 Feb 2006 22:21:48 -0500 I have now finished a very rough draft of the Preface, which I’ll put up for comment later today. But before I do that I’d like to mention a tricky problem in the very first sentence of the introduction. I’m sure that Smith has done something wrong, but I can’t quite figure out the nuance of the French…

]]> http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/02/je_sens_du_1.html http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/02/je_sens_du_1.html Translation issues Sun, 12 Feb 2006 08:34:03 -0500 For those of you in the Princeton area, the first, organizational meeting for the Merleau-Ponty reading group will take place today (Friday 2/10) from 2-3 in room 121 1879 Hall. Hope to see you there!

]]> http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/02/mp_reading_group_organizational_meeting.html http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/02/mp_reading_group_organizational_meeting.html Reading Group Fri, 10 Feb 2006 12:51:49 -0500 Here’s an example in which the issue of word order (previously discussed here) seems to arise pretty starkly. On p. vii of the Preface MP writes, “je peux bien distinguer de moi le monde et les choses, puisque assurément je n’existe pas à la manière des choses.” Literally this reads, “I can easily distinguish from myself the world and things, since surely I do not exist in the manner of things.” This sounds a bit awkward in English. But is there really any way to render it less awkwardly without changing the sense of the of the sentence? I think maybe not…

]]> http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/02/par_example_word_order_again_1.html http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/02/par_example_word_order_again_1.html Translation issues Wed, 08 Feb 2006 08:03:04 -0500 Earlier I mentioned the existence of an Analytic Table of Contents in the original French, one that is missing from the Smith translation. Well, it turns out that there have long since been attempts to map that Table of Contents onto the sections of the book. (Thanks to Tony Bruce, my editor at Routledge, for pointing this out to me.) Here, for instance, is a paper from 1979 that attempts such a mapping. There are certainly difficulties - especially as one gets farther along in the text. But one suggestion the author of this paper (Daniel Guerrière) makes is that MP was not totally dismissive of such an organizational structure. Indeed, he suggests that the organizational sections of the TOC usually correspond to the paragraphs in the original French text. This would make a lot of sense. In particular, it would explain why the paragraphs often go on for so many pages. MP, it seems, may not have been using paragraphs the way we do, to identify a single main idea, but rather as a way of indicating larger subsections of each chapter. There are still problems, of course. Merleau-Ponty’s writing style is in a certain sense holistic, and that stands in tension with the idea of a grand organizational structure to the text. But if the paragraphing structure really does map onto his own Analytic Table of Contents, or even if it does approximately, then that seems a strong indication that he was trying to put an organizational structure on the text even if it may have resisted. And that seems to give the translator a reason to indicate such a structural plan. Thoughts?

]]> http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/02/analytic_table_of_contents_1.html http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/02/analytic_table_of_contents_1.html Organization of the text Mon, 06 Feb 2006 09:16:05 -0500 Why do we need a new translation of PP? Here’s the case I’ve made to Routledge. (Word document.)

]]> http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/02/proposal.html http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/02/proposal.html Publishing Issues Thu, 02 Feb 2006 12:12:50 -0500 Ok, then - here it is. A first attempt at translating paragraph 1 of the Preface to Phenomenology of Perception. It’s a Word document with lots of comments highlighting places where I think there are potential issues. It’s substantially different from the Smith translation both in style and in substance, but I hope the changes are for the better. I’m counting on readers to let me know where I’ve gone wrong…

]]> http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/02/preface_paragraph_1_1.html http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/02/preface_paragraph_1_1.html Translation Drafts Wed, 01 Feb 2006 15:32:48 -0500 In the opening paragraph of the Preface to PP, Merleau-Ponty makes the well-known claim that Heidegger is just cribbing from Husserl: “all of Sein und Zeit springs from an indication in Husserl,” as Smith translates it. But is this really what MP is saying? It seems to me a bit more complicated in the French. More in extended…

]]> http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/02/contradictions_in_phenomenology.html http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/02/contradictions_in_phenomenology.html Translation issues Wed, 01 Feb 2006 00:56:04 -0500 Here’s even more apparatus. Often scholarly editions of the modern philosophers will have something that I call marginal headings. These are short descriptions in the margins of the text that say what topic is being discussed. They appear more often than sub-titles, and in any case are not written by the author himself. But they are a useful guide to what’s going on in the text. I think this could be especially useful for PP, since Merleau-Ponty is not very good at all about telling you what point of the argument he’s reached. In particular, he will sometimes go on for pages at a time as if he were talking in propria persona when in fact he’s presenting, say, the empiricists’ view - a view that he will ultimately reject. The marginal headings could help the reader keep track of who’s view he’s currently presenting, and in general of what topic he’s currently discussing. Are there disadvantages to this? One potential problem is that I’d like to put the French pagination in the margins also; perhaps when combined with the marginal headings this will get too busy. Other issues? Thoughts?

]]> http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/01/marginal_headings.html http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/01/marginal_headings.html Organization of the text Tue, 31 Jan 2006 20:15:32 -0500 The original French version of the text has an extended table of contents at the back of the book that includes what look to be sub-titles for each of the chapters. For instance, the chapter entitled La ‘Sensation’ has the following sub-titles: Comme impression. Comme qualité. Comme la conséquence immédiate d’une excitation. Qu’est-ce que le sentir? Unfortunately, these have been left out of the Smith translation. Even in the original French version, however, there is no indication as to which parts of the text these sub-titles cover. It sure would be nice to have the sub-titles in the body of the translation. One of the issues, then, will be where to put them. I understand from Bert Dreyfus that one of the translations (was it the translation into Swiss German?) has attempted this. Has anyone seen this translation? Any sense for how successful their choices were? A further note on the jump…

]]> http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/01/chapter_subtitles.html http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/01/chapter_subtitles.html Organization of the text Tue, 31 Jan 2006 19:25:55 -0500 Merleau-Ponty’s original paragraphing structure is awful. Sometimes paragraphs will go on for pages and pages, even switching within a paragraph from a view that he disagrees with to a view that he advocates. This makes it very difficult for the reader to follow the argument. I would like to put paragraphs into the translation to make it easier to read. What do people think - is this acceptable? It might be more acceptable if there was an easy way to tell which are the paragraphs I’ve put in and which are in the original. Is there a non-klugy way to do this?

]]> http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/01/paragraphs.html http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/01/paragraphs.html Organization of the text Tue, 31 Jan 2006 18:13:12 -0500 Welcome to Seeing Things. This is a blog devoted to the philosophy, phenomenology, and cognitive neuroscience of perception. At least that’s what I expect it will become. It’s inspiration, however, comes from a much narrower need. I have been commissioned by Routledge to produce a new translation of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Phénoménologie de la Perception, and I’m hoping this will be a useful aid. In particular, I plan to use the blog to make reports on my progress, to solicit feedback from knowledgeable readers, and just plain to ask for help. More details on extended…

]]> http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/01/welcome.html http://blogs.princeton.edu/skelly/2006/01/welcome.html About the Blog Tue, 31 Jan 2006 14:10:52 -0500