The rendering of terms

[Guest guest]

All,

 

I've just posted this to the CMN list

as well as the Unschuld forum at the

Paradigm site, but I think it's important

enough to warrant the risk of some of

you seeing it more than once.

 

I'll appreciate any feedback that any of

you might care to offer.

 

I came across the following paragraph in the front matter of the

recently published " Philosophical Translation " of the Dao De Jing by

Roger Ames and David Hall. Brilliant book. Highly recommended.

 

To wit, the following that I believe relates directly to various

themes discussed here and on the CMnet list recently.

 

Begin quote:

 

Here as in our previous work, in seeking to challenge the existing

formula of translations, we want to be at once deconstructive and

programmatic. That is, we begin from the concern that the popular

translations of these philosophical terms often to do not adequately

respect the degree of difference betweenour worldview and the

worldview in which these early Chiense texts were compiled and

transmitted. What is the most comfortable choice of language and what

at first blush makes the best sense to the translator might well be

taken as a signal that what is originally not familiar in the source

language is, at a stroke, made so. For example, the conventional

translation of dao as " the Way " or tian as " Heaven " or de as " virtue "

will, we hope, become rather clear examples of the unfamiliar being

made familiar. Such translations have been " legitimized " by their

gradual insinuation into the standard Chinese-English dictionaries

and glosses. And by encouraging that this formula of translations

provides the student with a " literal " and thus " conservative " render

of the terms, these lexicons have become climplicit in an entrenched

cultural equivocation that we strive to avoid.

 

End of quote.

 

This kind of cultural equivocation has one set of implications when

it concerns the reading, interpretation and transmission of

philosophical texts. It has quite a distinctly different and, I

submit, more ponderous set of implications when it concerns the

reading, interpretation and transmission of medical texts, although

as I and others have argued in the past, the medical texts depend

upon various underlying philosophical texts and bodies of knowledge

and as Unschuld puts it " cognitive aesthetics " for their motive force

and overall context for understanding.

 

I'm posting this to CMN, in case any of those folks who do not read

this board might find it of interest.

 

When the language deficiencies really hit home is just the moment

when you try and talk to anyone about what is actually happening in

the field, either in individual clinical encounters and particularly

in any kind of meta-study that seeks to establish an overall picture

or who's doing what and what happens in the way of results.

 

Ken