Seeing Things

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?

Posted by Sean Kelly at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

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?

Posted by Sean Kelly at 8:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

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…

Continue reading "Chapter Sub-titles" »

Posted by Sean Kelly at 7:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

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?

Posted by Sean Kelly at 6:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)