Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2006

I was pointing out the need for idiomatic English and showing how it's
done.

But he doesn't. He thinks he does, and I have dealt with German
academics on these issues before. They are unreasonable and completely
uninformed about what a translation is supposed to do (not be, DO; the
distinction is important). One of them told me, after I pointed out
that there was no point at all in a pedantic translation of Kant, that
it was not possible to be TOO pedantic! We had fiery words after that
comment!

Er... 'judgement'.

Here's my full review of Guyer-Wood, prepared for Amazon:

Please note that I am reviewing only the Guyer-Wood translation, not
the work itself.

There are four previous English translations of this work: Francis
Haywood (1838, revised 1848); JMD Meiklejohn (1855); F Max Müller
(1881, revised 1896); and NK Smith (1929). All of these (save the
first) have considerable merit. Meiklejohn shows considerable skill in
making Kant speak idiomatic English. As Müller points out, however,
Meiklejohn not infrequently flounders in Kant's monstrous gothic
sentences, and loses the thread of meaning. As a native German speaker
and scholar of language, and the son of a poet, Müller's 1881 version
set the standard for this work for intelligibility, clarity, and
readability. Unfortunately, his 1896 revision, made under the influence
of the more radical of the neo-Kantians, is somewhat less satisfactory.
He unwisely deferred to them in accepting highly questionable
modifications to the text. Smith's version borrowed heavily from
Meiklejohn's version stylistically, often copying passages almost
verbatim, and all too often where Meiklejohn had grievously erred in
understanding the text, and Müller had not!

Smith's version has been standard for many years, but even a cursory
comparison of Smith with Müller will show that the latter often has a
clearer grasp of the German, and provides a better expression of the
key concepts. Smith had also come under the influence of the radical
neo-Kantians, and his translation suffers severely from that.

Prospective readers of a great philosopher's work come to the work with
certain expectations. They have the right to expect - nay demand -
prose that reflects that greatness. Kant's great work is a work of
literature, and must be respected as any other work of literature. He
often employs literary devices (such as metaphor) to make his point
clearer. Sensitivity to idiomatic English style must be paramount in
the translation of so difficult a work as this.

In short: Translating a work of this kind calls for special talents.
Guyer and Wood, unfortunately, do not possess these talents.

They have no credentials in literary translation, translation theory,
or semiotics. Despite this, they have installed themselves as General
Editors of the Cambridge Kant translation series.

They expressly affirm that they have tried not to 'interpret' as they
translate, but to translate 'literally', and leave interpretation to
the reader. The difficulty is that such a stance is ideological, rather
than practical, and as such it is unsupportable.

Their translation follows the original in a slavish, word-for-word
fashion. The results are wooden and unnatural, and often
unintelligible. For a truly successful translation of a work such as
this, it is absolutely necessary to interpret, and to rewrite the
interpretation in idiomatic English, specifically late 18th-century
philosophical English. Often, complete reconstruction of the sentence
is necessary. Guyer and Wood never do this, and are in fact incapable
of doing this.

There is no excuse for allowing a translation to be unintelligible or
unidiomatic. If there are textual problems in the original (and in this
text there are many) the translator must attempt to resolve them.
Simply passing them along for the reader to dispose of (even though the
reader may be utterly incapable of 'interpreting' the resulting
gibberish), in the name of 'accuracy', is a mistaken notion. It does
no-one any good. The translator, not the author, will be blamed.

As a consequence, the Guyer-Wood translation is the worst ever of this
work, except for the very first one from 1838, by Francis Haywood, and
for the same reasons, cited by JMD Meiklejohn in his translation of the
Critique, published in 1855. Speaking of Haywood's primitive, literal,
word-for-word approach, Meiklejohn remarks:

"A translator ought to be an interpreting intellect between the author
and the reader; but in this case the only interpreting medium has been
the dictionary."

The same can be said of the Guyer and Wood translation.

It is interesting that Guyer and Wood, in their preface, praise the
very Haywood translation denounced by Meiklejohn, because (they say) it
was so 'literal' (folks, I'm not making this up!).

This is quite revealing of the incompetence of these two translators.
The best translation of this work was that of F. Max Müller, in
1881/1896. How do I know? I checked them all!

Müller's 1896 version is available online at:

http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/HTML.php?recordID=0330

Here's an example, from one of the most famous passages in this work:

"Die leichte Taube, indem sie im freien Fluge die Luft teilt, deren
Widerstand sie fühlt, könnte die Vorstellung fassen, daß es ihr im
luftleeren Raum noch viel besser gelingen werde. Ebenso verließ Plato
die Sinnenwelt, weil sie dem Verstande so vielfältige Hindernisse
legt, und wagte sich jenseit derselben auf den Flügeln der Ideen, in
den leeren Raum des reinen Verstandes. Er bemerkte nicht, daß er durch
seine Bemühungen keinen Weg gewönne, denn er hatte keinen Widerhalt,
gleichsam zur Unterlage, worauf er sich steifen, und woran er seine
Kräfte anwenden konnte, um den Verstand von der Stelle zu bringen. Es
ist aber ein gewöhnliches Schicksal der menschlichen Vernunft in der
Spekulation ihr Gebäude so früh, wie möglich, fertigzumachen, und
hintennach allererst zu untersuchen, ob auch der Grund dazu gut gelegt
sei. Alsdann aber werden allerlei Beschönigungen herbeigesucht, um uns
wegen dessen Tüchtigkeit zu trösten, oder eine solche späte und
gefährliche Prüfung abzuweisen."

Here's the Guyer-Wood translation:

"The light dove, in free flight cutting through the air the resistance
of which it feels, could get the idea that it could do even better in
airless space. Likewise, Plato abandoned the world of the senses,
because it imposed so many hindrances for the understanding, and dared
to go beyond it on the wings of his ideas, in the empty space of pure
understanding. He did not notice that he made no headway by all his
efforts, for he had no resistance, no support, as it were, by which he
could stiffen himself, and to which he could apply his powers in order
to get his understanding off the ground. It is, however, a customary
fate of human reason in speculation to finish its edifice as early as
possible and only then to investigate whether ground has been
adequately prepared for it. But at that point all sorts of excuses will
be sought for to assure us of its sturdiness or to refuse such a late
and dangerous an investigation."

No native English speaker would ever write an original sentence like
this:

"The light dove, in free flight cutting through the air the resistance
of which it feels, could get the idea that it could do even better in
airless space."

This is a preposterous translation, and there is no justification for
such dreadful English prose, no matter what the intentions or ideology
of the translator. This is simply gibberish.

Other points:
"Hindernisse legt" [first edition] is idiomatically "posed hindrances".
The characteristic insensitivity to idiomatic usage displayed by
Guyer-Wood reveals itself in their choice of "imposed". The proper
combination is "posing hindrances", not "opposing" or "imposing".

"...worauf er sich steifen": Their choice of 'stiffen himself' is
ludicrous. Kant here is comparing the understanding to a bird launching
itself into flight from its perch. The bird naturally tightens its
muscles and presses against the perch (forming the fulcrum for the
lever of its legs) to do this. The correct translation is 'brace
himself'.

The Guyer-Wood team again show their insensitivity to English usage by
translating the expression "gewöhnliches Schicksal" as "customary
fate", which is un-idiomatic and totally absurd. 'Fate' has nothing to
do with 'custom'; in fact, this is an oxymoron. Fate has to do with
things that are beyond men's control. What is 'customary' has to do
with what men habitually do. (The correct choices include "usual fate"
or perhaps "common fate".) This absurdity appears to be a direct
consequence of Guyer and Wood's stated preference for using a single
English term to render a single German term. But it results in
absurdities like 'customary fate'.

Here's my suggested translation of this passage:

"Parting the soft air with her wings and feeling its resistance, the
light dove might imagine that her efforts would be better served in
airless space. Abandoning the sphere of the senses because it posed so
many hindrances to the understanding, Plato ventured beyond experience,
on the wings of his ideas, into the empty space of the pure
understanding. He did not observe, though, that even with all his
efforts, nought was to be gained, for he had no resistance, no fulcrum,
as it were, against which he could brace himself and apply his powers,
to propel the understanding from its perch. Indeed, it is the usual
fate of human reason in the thrall of speculation to finish its edifice
as soon as possible, and only then to investigate whether the
foundation had been made firm. To ease our doubts of its solidity, we
then mark all the excellencies of our handiwork; or we seek excuses to
reject altogether such a threatening and belated inspection."

In the version presented here, the German "ebenso" ("in just this way")
is transformed from a semantic form (a word) to a grammatical
structure. The first and second sentences, "Parting the soft air with
her wings..." and "Abandoning the sphere of the senses..." now run
parallel in their grammatical form. This reinforces in the reader's
mind the parallel between the dove's thoughts and Plato's thoughts. We
no longer therefore have any need to say "in just this way". It has
been moved from the semantic "stream" to the syntactical. This parallel
form is not present in the original, strictly speaking, but this
construction is clearly warranted by the semantics of the piece. The
"ebenso" is no longer stated, but performed.

It seems necessary to add 'the thrall of' to 'in speculation' to fill
out the sense obviously intended by Kant. A literal translation is
confusing.

The German original, because of its inflection, provides information
that cannot be directly translated. `Die leichte Taube' means `the
light (female) dove'. Since the order of the sentence is substantially
changed, and because English does not have genders, I attempt to place
that information back at the beginning of the sentence by using the
phrase `with her wings'. So, right from the beginning we know that we
are dealing with a female winged creature, just as the German reader
does. The expression `with her wings' is also intended to account for
the original's `im freien Fluge' (in free flight) which is not
literally translated in my version. The reason it is handled this way
is because of the differences between German and English. It also
anticipates the 'wings of his ideas' in the following sentence.

Translation of one language into another requires thought and
interpretation. It is not a mechanical process. The words are not
numbers that can be processed as if through a computer, though Guyer
and Wood approach it that way. For that reason, Guyer and Wood simply
have no business translating anything. They are incompetent; among
other things, they import medieval meanings into Kant's text, something
for which they have no legitimate basis. This work demands a
sensitivity to language, and an ability to write in an English style
that is readable. Guyer and Wood lack that ability.

They have stated that their translation is intended for academics and
scholars. No translation, though, can ever take the place of the
original for scholarly purposes, no matter how carefully and
scrupulously the work is performed. Translations are suitable only for
introductory to intermediate classes. Anyone attempting serious study
of a work of this kind must refer to the original, and that means
learning to cope with Kant's somewhat idiosyncratic German.

Because Guyer and Wood do not understand the limitations of the process
of translation, their work is misguided. That in turn has led them to
make unfortunate choices in their translation. For this reason, and
because they themselves have no apparent literary talent, this
translation cannot be recommended.

             ----------NOT RECOMMENDED------------

Nein. Ich bin Italianisch-Amerikan.

Redundancy!

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