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Translation and the history of philosophy

a
Andrew Benjamin
a
University of Warwick ,
Published online: 30 Jun 2008.

To cite this article: Andrew Benjamin (1988) Translation and the history of philosophy, Textual Practice, 2:2, 242-260, DOI:
10.1080/09502368808582035

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 ANDREW BENJAMIN

Translation and the

history of philosophy
Avec ce problème de traduction nous n'aurons affaire à rien de
moins qu'au passage à la philosophie.
(Jacques Derrida)
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The fascination of philosophy with translation seems to take place within

the recognition that the philosophical project is linked to the possibility of
translation. In this regard it is not surprising that, for example, Quine's
Word and Object rotates around as well as orientates itself in relation to
the question of translation. The same connection is found in philosophical
writings as diverse as those of Derrida and Davidson. However, the linking
— or perhaps interlinking — of philosophy and translation seems to become
more problematic when what is at play is the history of philosophy. It is
these links, their preconditions, and their consequences that are pursued in
this paper.
Translation in its most naïve understanding has two dimensions. First it
involves the idea of recovery; of the recovery of a meaning, or truth, and
the subsequent re-expression of what has been recovered. Secondly this
understanding of translation also involves the idea of free exchange; of an
unmediated and unrestrained economy in which signifiers are the object of
exchange — a state of affairs that still pertains in the case of a negative
instance, i.e. within conceptions of translation that argue against the
possibility of free exchange and recovery. The naïve view has therefore
both a positive and a negative side. History, however, may be understood
as introducing into this economy of exchange the mediating factor of
temporal alterity. History seems to render translation problematic, for not
only is there the gap occasioning recovery to be traversed; there also seems
to be a temporal gap that positions the historical as the other whose
comprehension may be difficult and thus dependent upon the support
offered by contextual and intertextual markers. Within the naïve view it is
often the case that these considerations and their capacity to buttress
translations are assumed to be unproblematic. It is as though it is only the
text in question that is translated, while the elements comprising the
context or intertext are readily understood. Translation thus conceived is
the relationship between an already constituted self and other where

242
 history, understood as temporal alterity, and only thereby as conceptual
difference, introduces into this relationship the possibility that the other
may remain elusive.
One philosopher who would deny the possibility of the problems posed
above is Donald Davidson. His influential essay, 'On the very idea of a
conceptual scheme',1 attempts to present a sustained argument against the
existence of the potential problems inherent in the ability to understand
and to recover the thoughts and beliefs of others and therefore to translate.
Mutual understanding is almost inescapable. The importance of Davidson's
approach as outlined in this paper lies in his presentation of an argument
that there can be no 'intelligible' account of either partial or complete
'failure' of translation. This argument has the further consequence that
'Given the underlying methodology of interpretation we could not be in a
position to judge that others had concepts or beliefs radically different
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from our own' (p. 197). There are therefore two elements in the position
stated here. The first is a metaphysical position concerning the nature of the
relationship between meaning, belief, and truth. The second is an
anthropological premise concerning the nature of the interpreter and the
interpreted. Though these positions are clearly related, they are deployed
within Davidson's writings so as to be mutually reinforcing, one providing
the foundation of the other. In his essay 'Radical interpretation' part of the
justification for the so-called 'principle of charity' is advanced in the
following terms:
The methodological advice to interpret in a way that optimizes
agreement should not be conceived as resting on a charitable assumption
of human intelligence that might turn out to be false. If we cannot find a
way to interpret the utterances and other behaviour of a creature as
revealing a set of beliefs largely consistent and true by our own
standards, we have no reason to count that creature as rational, as
having beliefs,'or as saying anything, (p. 137)
Both of these texts advance a constant position that involves the interplay
of the anthropological and the metaphysical. That interplay signals
Davidson's debt to Kant, a debt which, once acknowledged, will allow
further insight into Davidson's own position. In analysing the interplay
between metaphysics and anthropology, what is essential is to trace its
effectuation by isolating its conditions of existence - that is, those
discursive elements which are held as constant and which therefore sustain
it.
References to conditions of existence and discourse are intended to
highlight the fact that the articulation of a philosophical position involves
the essentially and necessarily discursive. As such, this makes the object of
analysis one that is generated and sustained by specific metaphysical,
including ontological and temporal, commitments. This is not to argue,
however, that all aspects of texts are the simple instantiation of their con-
ditions of existence, for this would be to argue that the text is an organic
unity. Indeed, it is invariably the case that the practice of the text signals

PHILOSOPHY AND LITERARY THEORY 243

 the impossibility of unity. This is the lesson to be learnt from Derrida's
deconstniaive readings and those advanced by literary critics like Paul de
Man. However, this does not obviate the need to discuss conditions of
existence, for they delimit and define the components of the desired unity
that in turn make the practice of deconstruction possible.
There is little point in merely stating Davidson's position as though it
were some coherent and unproblematic whole - in other words, as though
it were (to use Davidson's terms) some 'familiar object' inviting what
Davidson will later term an 'unmediated touch'. The problems emerging
from his position and the important elements in it are to be found in the
details, if not the marginal details, of its presentation. Davidson opts for an
analysis of the possibility of conceptual schemes via the study of translation
because the supposition employed by philosophers who speak of conceptual
schemes is that the existence of language entails the existence of a
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conceptual scheme, with the related consequence that translation is

possible only if two languages share a conceptual scheme. As Davidson
expresses it, 'studying the criteria of translation is therefore a way of
focusing on criteria of identity for conceptual schemes' (p. 184). The
strategy employed by Davidson consists of analysing the basis of the claims
for both complete and partial untranslatability. Prior to launching into a
discussion of translation failure, he provides a hint as to what his
conclusion is going to be. The interesting aspect is not the hint itself but the
implied understanding of translation within it. After mentioning the
existence of a particular belief or attitude, he goes on to state: 'it seems
unlikely that we can intelligibly attribute attitudes as complex as those to a
speaker unless we can translate his words into ours' (p. 186). 'If it can be
assumed that translation here means more than understanding or
describing a series of words, and moreover if it can be assumed that words
are or may be unfamiliar, then Davidson has provided a brief insight into
the implicit conception of translation at work in his text, part of the
importance of which stems from the fact that he does not seem to provide
even a working definition of the term 'translation'. The remarks cited
above suggest that the interpretation of words occurs prior to translation,
because, if translation has the attribution of beliefs as a precondition, then
translation is itself possible only as a consequence of attribution and
interpretation. What emerges in these remarks is the interplay between
anthropology and metaphysics within which translation is to be" under-
stood.
The possibility of being able to 'intelligently attribute attitudes' is
therefore the existence of a universal rationalist anthropology giving rise to
a generalized and universal conception of self. Given this assumed
universality, it is furthermore possible to develop an understanding of
language in a specific as well as a universal sense. On the general level,
language is both the voice and the instantiation of the universal self (i.e.
universal man). It is on the level of the specific that it is possible to allow for
individual natural languages and even to posit the existence of un-
discovered natural languages. A diversity of languages is possible only

Z44 TEXTUAL PRACTICE

 because their existence neither challenges nor transgresses the relationship
between universal man and the general nature of language. Furthermore,
the possibility of a difference between languages is grounded in the
prevailing and all-encompassing identity afforded by the conception of self
implicit in Davidson's position.
For Davidson, translation occurs after interpretation, and as such it can
be seen to occupy a dual position. First, translation is simply a way of
describing the process whereby the identification of equivalences in and
between languages is expressed. To translate is to express the equivalent
'thing' in another language. It is worth reiterating that difference
occasioning equivalence is grounded in identity because identity in
grounding differences allows for equivalence in so far as equivalence
involves the recognition that the 'same' is at play despite difference. There
is, however, another position occupied by translation. In this instance it is a
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translation that seems to precede translation. Interpretation, even if it takes

place before translation, must involve the identification of equivalence, and
this identification must take place whether or not two different languages
are involved. The second form of translation seems to include the
recognition of a more fundamental equivalence which in turn engenders
the possibility of the recognition of semantic equivalence, thereby giving
rise to a complex series of interconnected preconditions. It will be
necessary to return to this latter form of translation.
Proceeding from what has been identified as Davidson's hint, his first
major move is to analyse what he terms the 'third dogma of empiricism',
which he locates in the writings of Feyerabend, Kuhn, and Putnam. The
emergence of the third dogma is a consequence, he suggests, of having
given up the analytic/synthetic distinction, and is a 'dualism of conceptual
scheme and empirical content'. Davidson explains the nature and problem
of this new dualism thus:
The idea is then that something is a language, and associated with a
conceptual scheme, whether we can translate it or not, if it stands in a
certain relation predicating, organizing, facing, or fitting experience,
nature, reality, sensory promptings. The problem is to say what the
relation is, and to be clear about the entities related, (p. 191)
Davidson's main concern in the rest of the text is to show that this dualism
is unintelligible (or at least 'cannot be made intelligible'). Before discussing
his argument, I should, perhaps, trace the way in which the dualism is
established. I want to focus on what I take to be idiosyncratic in
Davidson's interpretation of Kuhn and Feyerabend, for the simple reason
that his presentation of the 'third dogma' is a consequence of that
interpretation.
Davidson interprets Feyerabend's argument against 'meaning invariance'
and Kuhn's argument for the incommensurability of theories as containing
both a descriptive and a prescriptive element. He neglects the fact that
Kuhn and, to varying degrees, Feyerabend are concerned with a retro-
spective analysis of historical change, and only then with the impact that

PHILOSOPHY AND LITERARY THEORY 245

 the nature of this change should have upon our conception of contemporary
philosophical and historical practice. Fundamental to both Kuhn and
Feyerabend is the recognition that historical change is not occasioned by
conscious decisions made by individuals about the future. Indeed,
according to Kuhn, change in paradigms is only ever noticed retro-
spectively. Davidson is right to read them as agreeing with the suggestion
that 'a change has come over the meaning of a sentence because it now
belongs to a new language', but wrong to think that they provide a
'formula for generating distinct conceptual schemes'. The reason why he is
wrong is that the arguments of Kuhn and Feyerabend neither contain nor
advance a prescription of how to make developments in science. They may
be prescriptive about how the history of science ought to be understood,
but not in relation to what ought to be done to bring about changes or
developments in science. There is therefore no formula for generating new
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conceptual schemes, but merely a formula for identifying conceptual

schemes that no longer determine the practice of contemporary science.
The problem is compounded by Davidson's interpreting the actual
prescriptive claims concerning the future of science made by Quine and
Smart as a consequence of the positions held by Kuhn and Feyerabend.
Quine and Smart argue, as far as Davidson is concerned, that developments
in science and the overcoming of problems hindering such developments
can occur by a change in the 'way we talk'. Davidson quite rightly objects
to this recommendation on the grounds that a simple change in language
does not on its own signal a change in conceptual scheme. Language
change, he says, shows nothing more than

the pedestrian fact that the truth of a sentence is relative to (among other
things) the language to which it belongs. Instead of living in different
worlds, Kuhn's scientists may, like those who need Webster's dictionary,
be only words apart, (p. 189)

Giving up the dualism of the analytic and the synthetic, present in the work
of Kuhn and Feyerabend, yields a dualism between conceptual schemes and
empirical content that is for Davidson equally problematic. However, in
assuming that Davidson is right to object to the modus operandi suggested
by Quine and Smart, what still must be investigated is the basis of his
interpretation of Kuhn and Feyerabend — namely, his claim that they hold a
prescriptive attitude about the future. The reason for this clarification is
that behind Davidson's interpretation is a specific view of the relationship
between language and language users. It is this relationship that must be
examined because it structures, in part, his understanding of translation
and the way in which the metaphysical and the anthropological figure
within it.
Early in the text, at the point where he establishes the problem of
conceptual schemes, he advances the position that the criteria for
translation provide a way of proceeding in resolving the problem. He goes
on to note that'

Z46 TEXTUAL PRACTICE

 If conceptual schemes aren't associated with language in this way, the
original problem is needlessly doubled, for then we would have to
imagine the mind, with its ordinary categories, operating within a
language with its organizing structure. Under the circumstances we
would certainly want to ask who is to be master, (p. 184)

The choice that Davidson seems to offer is between language as master of

the language user or the user as master of language. It is clear, of course,
from the tone of the presentation of the choice that were Davidson to
answer the question then the response would be that in the battle for
mastery the user necessarily triumphs. Language is that in which we
express ourselves, and as such language must be subservient to that
expression. It only lives on in the mouths of speakers who in speaking both
control as well as give life to language. Breath* truly becomes spirit. Only if
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users are masters of language does it then become possible to re-express

both what is wanted in language and what is wanted of language. Only,
therefore, if language is understood and conceived of as controlled does it
then become possible for the prescriptivism attributed to Quine and Smart
to be taken seriously; and equally for Davidson's objection to have the
force he wants. Now, his objection can be expressed as stating that, as
users control language, and as language is infused with what users want or
intend, it cannot follow from the existence of new and original terminology
that a new language is being used, otherwise the categories of the mind
would be incompatible with the categories of language. The only problem
that could emerge would be one whose resolution demanded simple
clarification—a semantic settling of accounts with the use of no more than a
dictionary.
The interesting aspect of Davidson's view of the relationship between
user and language is that it involves and necessitates a particular
understanding of the language user in order that communication can take
place. The locus of communication is the user, and therefore, in order for
there to be communication, there must be a similarity, if not a sameness, in
so far as users are concerned. It is quite clear, however, that as users differ,
nationally, racially, etc., there must be a way of establishing sameness (or
equivalence) that effaces and overcomes these differences. This occurs via
the use of a specific philosophical anthropology, i.e. universal rational
man. It cannot matter what language is being spoken, for language is no
more than that in which what there is to be expressed finds its expression.
The shift away from language as the locus of communication, and thereby
meaning, towards the user, and to a particular understanding of the'user, is
also mirrored in Davidson's conception of translation. Since translation,
understood as involving two tiers of equivalence, is premised upon the fact
that interpretation, or in the case of an unknown language the capacity or
potential for interpretation, occurs prior to translation (where translation
is understood in this instance as no more than the process whereby the
equivalent 'thing' is said in a different natural language), it therefore
follows that the capacity to translate - the possibility of translation itself—

PHILOSOPHY AND LITERARY THEORY 247

 is premised upon a sameness existing at the level of the user. That
sameness, as has already been mentioned, necessarily excludes and effaces
differences and can almost be envisaged as having the further consequence
that the possibility of original difference undermines the possibility of the
universal application of the term 'human'. These consequences, and more,
are at stake if the question of mastery is answered in the way suggested by
Davidson's tone.
Returning, however, to the compatibility he locates between Kuhn and
Feyerabend on the one hand and Quine and Smart on the other, it should
now be clear that the possibility of its being established does not lie in the
fact that Kuhn and Feyerabend employ a conception of language that is
similar to or the same as Davidson's but rather in the fact that he interprets
them as answering the question of mastery in the same way. The
disagreement between them, at least as it is construed by Davidson,
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concerns the differing consequences that the same answer has. If

Davidson's interpretation of Kuhn, Feyerabend, Quine, and Smart were
correct, then his objection to the prescriptivism he locates in their work
would be correct, for it does not follow from the existence of a new
language that a new conceptual scheme is at work. It is perhaps sufficient
to note that in this regard the correctness of his objection must be seen as
checked by the fact that neither Kuhn nor Feyerabend holds the positions
about the future attributed to them by Davidson. His misinterpretation
therefore opens a path that could be followed, for what would be of great
interest is how within his own philosophical enterprise his new position as
misinterpreter is to be understood — a problem which is, of course, made
even more acute because of the similarity between understanding and
translation. However, my concern at this stage is the basis of his
interpretation, namely that he attributes to them the same response to the
question of mastery.
It should, of course, be pointed out that Davidson's desire to locate
equivalence or sameness on this level leads him to misinterpret philoso-
phical positions whose response to the question of mastery is different. The
fact that this question and its answer are, within the strategy of the text,
both unproblematic and obvious is further indication that the conception
of equivalence and sameness that seems to occur prior to translation and is
explicable in terms of the presence of an abstract conception of universal
man underlies and in part grounds his theory of translation. It is in this
light that the third dogma must be understood, i.e. as bringing with it the
unstated but necessarily held positions concerning the nature of both
language and the language user. Davidson's argument against the third
dogma takes place in relation to an attempt to establish the connection
between, first, language and related conceptual schemes and, secondly,
language and experience.
His argument involves the following stages. The first move is to explicate
the dualism in terms of some language (or conceptual scheme) either
'organizing' or.'fitting' reality to experience. He then goes on to argue that,
if what is being looked for is 'a criterion of complete untranslatability',

248 TEXTUAL PRACTICE

 then this cannot be provided by the organizational connection, because in
the case of totality (e.g. the universe, reality) it makes little sense to argue
that the unity itself can be organized; rather, all that is possible is
organization within a unity or totality — e.g. of shirts within a cupboard,
not the cupboard itself. The same is going to be true in regard to
experience, because organizational principles are deployed within the
totality of experience and not in relation to experience itself. The
consequence is, as Davidson indicates,
whatever plurality we take experience to consist in events like losing a
button, or stubbing a toe, having a sensation of warmth or hearing an
oboe, we will have to individuate according to familiar principles. A
language that organizes such entities must be a language very much like
our own. (p. 192)
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There is something extremely interesting in the formulation of this point,

since if it were to be asked why 'A language that organizes such entities
must be a language very much like our own' then the answer would
involve, of necessity, positing a universality not so much on the level of
experience but in a subtler way, namely on the level of what counts as
experience. Implicit within such an answer must be a control mechanism
that both authenticates while identifying experiences. It is not surprising
that the universality at play here is part of a scheme within which universal
man plays a pivotal role.
The next step in Davidson's argument is to move to a discussion of
'fitting' either reality or experience in order to investigate further whether
the third dogma will account for complete translation failure. Davidson's
procedure in this instance is to argue that the metaphor of 'fitting' means
no more than stating that 'something is a conceptual scheme or theory if it
is true'. This conclusion is reached because 'fitting' is understood in the
following way: 'A sentence or theory fits our sensory promptings,
successfully faces the tribunal of experience, predicts future experience, or
copes with the pattern of our surface irritations, provided it is borne out by
the evidence' (p. 194). If this is the case, the conditions of existence proper
to a conceptual scheme are that it be both true and untranslatable.
Davidson goes on to suggest that the viability of the criteria is 'just the
question of how well we understand the notion of truth as applied to
language, independent of the notion of translation'; to which his answer is:
not at all (p. 194).
Neither the metaphor of 'fitting' nor that of 'organizing' can provide a
criterion for complete translation failure, and, as Davidson adds, in
abandoning them, what is also abandoned is the idea of a unique self-
referential scheme, such as a Kuhnian paradigm or a theory incom-
mensurable with all other theories. Having argued against complete failure,
he now turns his attention to partial failure, which is understood in the
following way:
This introduces the possibility of making changes and contrasts in

PHILOSOPHY AND LITERARY THEORY 249

 conceptual scheme intelligible by reference to the common part. What
we need is a theory of translation or interpretation that makes no
assumptions about shared meanings, concepts or beliefs, (p. 195)

Davidson begins by asking the question if it is assumed on the one hand

that an individual's speech cannot be interpreted unless something is
known about the individual's beliefs, wants, etc., and on the other that it is
impossible to distinguish between beliefs, wants, etc., unless an individual's
speech is understood, then how is speech to be interpreted and how are
beliefs, wants, etc., to be attributed? Answering this question would
address the criterion given above for the possibility of accounting for
partial failure of translation; however, it will, of course, have been seen
that the already posited distinaion between interpretation and accounting
for attitudes, given the rider of both being wanted simultaneously and
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neither being assumed, will in the end indicate that even partial translation
failure is an impossibility.
The answer to the problem of how to provide a theory of interpretation
and to account for beliefs, wants, etc., while assuming neither, is via truth.
Following Quine, Davidson claims that what can be accepted as
unproblematic is that speakers hold their utterances to be true. Such an
assumption does not commit the interpreter to prior knowledge of either a
specific utterance or a belief. It is perhaps important to point out that this
approach is not only compatible with but also a consequence of the fart
that truth for Davidson is not in a strict sense propositional; rather it
involves the interrelationship between the speaker, the utterance, and a
specific context. This is made clear in his essay 'True to the farts', where he
states that 'Truth (in a natural language) is not a property of sentences: it is
a relationship between sentences, speakers and dates' (p. 43). As shall be
seen, this interrelationship plays a significant role within his theory of
interpretation.
In the case of an utterance which presents an interpretative problem,
given the assumptions of its being held true, it has to be and can be
reinterpreted in order, as Davidson suggests, 'to preserve a reasonable
theory of belief (p. 19z). Interpretation starts with the assumption that the
utterance, though problematic for the interpreter, is believed to be true by
the speaker. This forms the stated basis of his theory of interpretation — a
theory that is equally as applicable in trivial cases as it is in complex ones,
where the speaker's language may not even be known. It also delimits a
procedural methodology for interpretation. Even though the first can be
described as the assumption of holding true, there is in fart a more basic
and unstated assumption that does not concern truth per se but the
extension of truth. It is hardly remarkable to state that the extension of
truth must be universal; however, the problem is that this merely states a
condition that has to be fulfilled by truth, and does not indicate that this
condition has been met. All that is indicated is its necessity. It is interesting
to note that, at the moment when not just the condition but its being met
must be argued for, Davidson opts for a move that could perhaps be

25O TEXTUAL PRACTICE

 described as an appeal to authority or the self-evident: 'I suggest, following
Quine, that we accept without circularity or unwarranted assumptions
certain very general attitudes towards sentences as the best evidence for a
theory of radical interpretation' (p. 195).
The basic attitude is, of course, what has already been described as
'holding true'. -While it is tempting to dwell on the rhetorical force of
'following Quine', what is at issue here is not that speakers hold their
sentences to be true, but that what is meant by holding true is the same in
each instance. In other words, holding true for X in language A must be
equivalent to holding true for Y in language B. In order to begin to
translate or interpret, in Davidson's sense, between A and B, then, holding
true must be equivalent in each. It is not enough, therefore, to say that
speakers hold their sentences to be true, for it does not follow from this
that what is involved in holding an utterance to be true is the same in each
instance. Universality must be presupposed, therefore, both in relation to
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truth itself and in relation to the nature and content of the disposition of
holding true. The only justification for the second instance of universality -
and, it must be added, necessary universality — is the posited but unargued-
for conception of self as universal rational man. Davidson does attempt,
however, to dissociate himself from some of the universalistic assumptions
mentioned above. He does, for example, argue in relation to 'Convention
T' that 'it isn't of course a definition of truth, and it does not hint that there
is a single definition or dieory that applies to languages generally' (p. 194).
None the less, despite these protestations about the formulation of truth, it
remains the case that at a deeper level what counts as holding true has to be
viewed as universal. Perhaps this may mean that 'Convention T could and
would be argued for in terms of its universality. However, this is not the
issue, for whether or not there is an attempt, either implicit or subsequent,
to argue for the universality of 'Convention T' any universal theory or
definition of truth will have to be compatible with the interrelationship
between holding true and universal self. Furthermore, Davidson's principle
of charity finds its metaphysical support within this interrelationship.
Davidson summarizes his conclusion thus:

The method is not designed to eliminate disagreement, nor can it; its
purpose is to make meaningful disagreement possible, and this depends
entirely on a foundation — some foundation — in agreement. The
agreement takes the form of widespread sharing of sentences held true by
speakers of the same language, or agreement in the large mediated by a
theory of truth contrived by an interpreter for speakers of another
language, (pp. 196-7)
The position stated here eloquently sums up some of the aims and
presuppositions of his theory of interpretation and therefore of translation.
It furthermore brings a number of important points into focus. The first is
that the term 'disagreement' must be read as a metaphor that includes
translation within its ambit of possible and potential meanings. Translation
and the overcoming of simple disagreement are possible to the extent that

PHILOSOPHY AND LITERARY THEORY Z51

 divergence and difference are themselves grounded in identity or sameness
- an initial accord. (There is an intriguing echo of Heidegger in this
formation.) This is clear from Davidson's claim that meaningful disagree-
ment must have a foundation in agreement, and therefore should be read as
suggesting that meaningful disagreement must be mutually explicable and
in the long run caused by either error or miscalculation. If the basis of
meaning is truth, then the problems of meaning and communication occur
and are encountered to the extent that there is a departure from truth.
The foundation of 'meaningful disagreement' is the next point worthy of
attention, especially since the term 'foundation' refers back to the
distinction already established between the simple proposition of sentences
held to be true and the more complex one of sentences held to be true that
are the same in each instance. It is quite clear that Davidson is going to
deny this distinction, since for him holding true will have to be the same in
each instance in order to function as a foundation. Further, it must be
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asked what is meant by a 'sharing of sentences held true by speakers of the

same language'. Presumably what is at issue is not the form of a true
sentence but actual sentences that are 'held true' and shared. Now, if they
are shared in virtue of their truth, then truth has nothing to do with
speakers but only with sentences. This, however, is not Davidson's stated
position. Another interpretation would be that they are 'held true' because,
since truth is relative to a language and since language users have certain
beliefs, the instantiation of those beliefs in language is the presence, shared,
of sentences 'held true'. This is, of course, a simple tautology. It will be
necessary to return to the problem of what makes these shared sentences
held to be true.
The third aspect which is of interest here concerns the relationship
between holding true and the interpretation of speakers of other languages.
Davidson's formulation lends itself to the following possible interpretation: as
native speakers hold their sentences to be true, interpretation must involve
interposing a theory of truth that enables the interpreter to identify
agreement among native speakers that is the same type of agreement as that
found between speakers of the same language, or, perhaps, to be more
precise, the language of the interpreter. The agreement would take 'holding
true' as its essential characteristic, with the related consequence that what
it means to hold something as true and to act in relation to what is held to
be true has to be universal (and universal in every sense of the term).
Once again the question that must be confronted is what is meant by
'holding true'. Perhaps this question is best approached in the way already
outlined, namely in terms of its function. The function of 'holding true' is
that it provides a foundation for the method of radical interpretation in so
far as it is intended to 'make meaningful disagreement possible'. A
disagreement that was not meaningful would involve either irrationality or
the attempt to present disagreement in terms of conceptual schemes or
incommensurable paradigms. The danger of schemes and paradigms, from
Davidson's point of view, is that if there is no external foundation then
there can be ho resolution. The dispute or conflict between parties — and

Z52 TEXTUAL PRACTICE

 here these terms can be understood as the mark of difference - is
reconcilable only if there is an arbiter; in other words, only if difference is
explicable in terms of sameness or identity. Even when sameness
necessitates an anthropological dimension (a conception of self), it still
demands universality with respect to the self holding to be true. The
anthropological cannot be dismissed because of the dispositional nature of
holding true. The metaphysical dimension, namely the relationship
between identity and difference, is jointly articulated with the anthropo-
logical in Davidson's system. There is no self that is not always already
philosophical.
The final aspect of Davidson's text that warrants comment is the closing
passage in which he describes what he takes to be an important
consequence of having given up the dualism of conceptual scheme or
language and the world: 'In giving up the dualism of scheme and world, we
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do not give up the world, but re-establish unmediated touch with the
familiar objects whose antics make our sentences and opinions true or
false' (p. 198). Clearly the main problematic element here is the claim that
an 'unmediated touch' is in fact possible. The familiar objects are
presumably objects in the world or part of the world with which 'we' are
familiar, thereby excluding those parts of the world with which 'we' are
not familiar. The 'antics' or at least the attribution of 'antics' to objects is
not, presumably, a form of vitalism but merely indicates that among other
things 'we' have an active relationship with objects in the world and that
they have an active rather than passive relationship with us. However, I
want to focus on the possibility of an 'unmediated touch'.
The contrast between the mediated and the unmediated is explicable in
terms of the presence and absence not just of conceptual schemes but of the
dualism of scheme and world. In its absence 'we' ('we' here standing for the
universal individual) have an unlimited access to the world. The important
aspect to note is that Davidson does not actually say that 'we' have an
unlimited access to the world per se but only to the familiar in it. Were he
to be arguing that the absence of dualism enabled unmediated access to the
world itself, then he would be opting for a radical empiricism in which the
world gave itself to consciousness and the conscious subject apprehended
the world as it is. The history of scepticism and the critique of reflexivity
would mean that this is a position for which arguments would have to be
advanced. In distinguishing, albeit implicitly, between the world per se and
familiar objects, Davidson calls into question the very possibility of the
unmediated, since an 'unmediated touch' cannot, without involving
mediation, distinguish between those things in the world that are touched
and are therefore familiar, and those things that either are not touched
because they are unfamiliar or are unfamiliar because they are not touched.
To distinguish on the grounds of familiarity is already to establish a
mediated relationship between self (the 'we' of the passage) and the world.
It is mediated, first, because there are two specific modes of existence at
play within the distinction between the familiar and the unfamiliar and,
secondly, because there is something that occasions and allows a

PHILOSOPHY AND LITERARY THEORY 2.53

 distinction to be drawn between the familiar and the unfamiliar. In regard
to the first of these points, it is clear that a general conception of being or
existence can be attributed to the familiar and the unfamiliar. Whatever it
is that belongs to both categories can be said to exist. However, the
existence of the familiar, in respect of its being the familiar, has a
determinate existence that differs fundamentally from simple existence. A
distinction between simple existence and determinate existence as dis-
tinguishing therefore between the familiar and the unfamiliar involves a
transgression of the pure unmediated and is thereby the affirmation of the
presence of mediation. A further consequence is that as 'we' are inevitably
familiar with the world, and therefore as 'we' inevitably distinguish
between that which is in the world, the relationship between self and world
automatically and, of necessity, involves mediation.
A possible Davidsonian response would be not to deny that mediation in
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the above-mentioned sense occurs, but to go on to say that it occurs in the

same way for all language users, and that therefore this particular
understanding of mediation is no more than, first, a description of the basis
of the indeterminancy of translation and, secondly, just a description of the
confrontation between the universal self and the world.
The difficulty with this response is that it assumes that the same activity
occurs between speakers of different natural languages as it does between
speakers of the same language. If this were not the case, then the tacit
acceptance of mediation, as outlined above, could also be the acceptance of
a description of a conceptual scheme. In order that it not be so, universality
has to be assumed. If it could be shown that what counts as familiarity for
speakers of language A is different from what is familiar to speakers of
language B — which is not even to entertain the problem of whether or not
they both hold sentences about those objects to be true - then this would
amount to prima facie evidence that the way in which the one distinguished
the familiar from the unfamiliar, i.e. distinguished between objects in the
world, is different from the way in which the other made the distinction.
The existence of such a difference, because it involves mediation, would
also entail the existence of whatever it is that can be said to regulate
mediation, and here it would amount to an argument for the existence not
just of conceptual schemes but of different conceptual schemes. Again the
only counter is to universalize familiarity. However, to the extent that there
is this continual need to universalize, it means that universality is becoming
so abstract that it begins to lose its force, and therefore, far from solving
the problem, it only compounds it. Universality only ever functions as an
implicitly posited a priori in Davidson's system, and therefore, to the extent
that his system depends upon it, it becomes increasingly untenable. Appeals
to universality cannot overcome all the problems that flow from the
argument against the impossibility of an 'unmediated touch'.
Davidson views interpretation and translation in terms of rational
recovery, in which the recovery is premised on a shared rationality between
all speakers — it functions as the sine qua non for being a person — and with
it a shared understanding of what counts as an experience, as well as the

254 TEXTUAL PRACTICE

 equivalent conception of what is involved in holding a sentence to be true.
Davidson's position is an example of a predominant philosophical strategy
that is premised on rational recovery and in which the possibility of truth
and meaning are in some sense outside language, and therefore what is
recovered and translated is a meaning or truth that then comes to be re-
expressed in another language. The additional point should be made that
what is re-expressed is what has been recovered. The translation cannot
contain marks of either loss or damage (Davidson has already argued
against the impossibility of even partial translation failure), for, were they
to be present, the possibility of recovery and re-expression would have
been jeopardized, and the task thwarted.
Even though they are interrelated, the two most significant consequences
of the preceding interpretation of Davidson are first the dependence on an
increasingly abstract conception of universality and secondly the connection
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between the impossibility of an 'unmediated touch' and the project of

rational recovery. However, these consequences are problems not simply
for Davidson's position but for the project of rational recovery itself.
A Kantian element in Davidson's work has already been briefly alluded
to, and it will be in clarifying it that the problem of universality can best be
approached. Without excluding other connections, the Kant I have in mind
is the one who in the Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan
Purpose was concerned with the threat posed by human diversity to the
identification of a single purpose for man, or rather what is called 'man',
which is to be acted out in accordance with universal and natural laws. It
will be instructive to follow Kant's resolution of this difficulty.
The only problem in identifying a singular purpose for man stems from
the diversity of human practice coupled with man's uneven development.
Kantian universality overcomes the threat posed by the diversity of human
actions because purpose (as he argues) does not pertain to man per se. It is
nature whose purpose is singular, and as such this implicates man in his
universality, and therefore the problem of diversity is excluded. It is
tempting to see here the philosophical manœuvre of grounding difference
and diversity in unity or identity. Kant construes the relationship between
man and nature thus:
Nature gave man reason, and freedom of the will based upon reason,
and this in itself is clear indication of nature's intentions in regards his
endowments. For it showed that man was not meant by innate
knowledge: on the contrary he was meant to produce everything out of
himself.2
Man is an end in himself only because of the purpose of nature, the result
of which is that two elements can be discerned within nature's existence.
The first is that nature is functional in so far as it provides the ground of
universality. The second is that its existence must be assumed a priori.
Even though the activity of nature can be experienced, nature must exist of
itself. The consequence is that nature is both a ground while itself being
groundless. Nature in Kant functions as a groundless ground.

PHILOSOPHY AND LITERARY THEORY 155

 It is the singularity of nature's purpose that of necessity engenders
universal man. If this were not the case, then the diversity of human action
would threaten this purpose. Nature engendering universal man excludes
the possibility of difference, and reciprocally the exclusion of difference is
essential in order that nature's purpose be realized. This process is
extremely complex because there is a sense in which nature allows for both
difference and diversity in so far as it has provided free will. Difference and
diversity are possible, but only to the extent that what allows for them,
namely free will, is also that which has the potential to allow for their being
overcome. It is free will that allows man to recognize his own nature,
namely as the possessor of reason, and in so doing to affirm his freedom.
However, it is only in his recognizing his freedom that the threat of
diversity is overcome, and therefore it is in that specific act of affirmation
that universal man holds sway.
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Man's rationality is a consequence of nature's endowment, and thus

diversity and difference can be explained and accounted for as a digression
and deviation away from the way that is proper to man in virtue of his
being human. Diversity is overcome via recourse to universality. The
ground of universality for Kant is nature. Nature therefore provides the
ground that enables universality to be identified at the same moment as the
capacity for diversity is excluded. Nature, however, has no ground. There
is no purpose within which nature has a place and function, other than the
purpose of nature itself. Nature is a ground and yet it is groundless. For
Kant, rationality necessitates recourse to a groundless ground in order to
justify its own project, and yet with the curious consequence of the inherent
incompatibility of the groundless ground and the project itself. It is this
troublesome connection that when traced back into Kant's work can be
seen to call its formulation into question. It is also a connection that is at
play in both the conception and the function of universality in Davidson's
writings on translation and hence also within his conception of philosophy.
In Davidson's text, universality is present in the following ways: first, in
relation to experience, since what counts as an experience must be
universal; secondly, in relation to 'holding true', in so far as the state (be it
psychological in a strict sense or simply a disposition) must be universal;
thirdly, in relation to language, which is the voice of universal man,
because of the way in which the question of mastery was resolved and also
because it is only this configuration that overcomes the potential threat
posed to his position by the diversity of natural languages. In all of these
instances there are two fundamental factors involved: first, the connection
between universality and the metaphysical and anthropological positions
within which it is articulated; and, secondly, the use of the appeal, both
implicit and explicit, to universality as the fundamental move in a number
of important arguments as well as in the formulation of his position.
The nature of the interconnection between universality, metaphysics,
and philosophical anthropology provides the frame within which Davidson's
position is advanced. There is a continual attempt in his text to provide an
account of différence in terms of its being generated and sustained by a

2.56 TEXTUAL PRACTICE

 prevailing identity. For example, the difference between natural languages
is sustained by a conception of language as the voice of universal man and
also as that which allows truth to be relative to language. Without a
universal conception of truth and language, the claim that truth is relative
to language would amount to the assertion of some type of conceptual
relativism. Relativism is avoided only because the assumption of some type
of universality precludes such an eventuality. Universality in Davidson's
system has the same mode of existence as nature in Kant's. The mode is the
groundless ground. Universality sometimes provides the explicit ground in
a specific argument, and at other times it is implicitly assumed in order that
arguments be deployed or potential objections overcome. The question
that must be asked, however, concerns the compatibility between
Davidson's stated intentions and the groundless ground. In other words,
even though Davidson's project can be seen to depend upon the groundless
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ground, can such a concept be incorporated within it?

This question does not concern whether or not the groundless ground is
a possible object of knowledge within Davidson's system. Rather it refers
to the possible inclusion within the system of a transcendental a priori, i.e.
the groundless ground. Perhaps it would suffice to show that a sentence or
statement seeking to justify the form of the transcendental turn could not
be shown to be true. However, that would fail to address the more
substantial issue of the compatibility between the system and the
groundless ground. A clue to the resolution of the problem lies in elements
of Davidson's theory of meaning associated with Davidson's programme,
since the locus of meaning within it is, as has been argued, the speaker
rather than the utterance. The important consequence of locating the
speaker as central is that it would make the transcendental an entity whose
existence would be similar to the existence of a statement within a theory
of meaning, where proposition and sentences were true independently of
speakers and, more importantly, independently of beliefs, desires, wants,
and so on.
The transcendental falls beyond the purview of the interrelationship
between 'speakers, sentences and dates'. It has to be of an order that is not
limited contextually, if only for straightforward ontological reasons. In
other words, the transcendental brings with it a distinction between the
instant (the temporality of coming to be and passing away if taken as
specifying no more than that form of existence) and the eternal or
atemporal — a distinction that is characterized by the atemporal as
functioning to guarantee and underpin the viability and veracity of claims
made within the realm of the temporal. Plato, unlike Davidson, included
the eternal as an integral part of his philosophical adventure, attributing to
it the function described above. Davidson, however, in limiting the
definition of truth to the 'relationship between sentences, speakers and
dates', aims at excluding the transcendental. The problem is that it is
precisely what is excluded from the description of truth — remembering, of
course, that truth is the basis of meaning and interpretation — that allows
for the particular formulation of meaning and interpretation (and hence

PHILOSOPHY AND LITERARY THEORY 257

 translation) that is present in his texts.
Not only does the conception of universality grow increasingly more
abstract as problems are posed for it; it is also the case that universality and
the function of universality within the system is excluded at the same time
as it is inscribed within it. Universality as the groundless ground — as
Kantian nature — is what it cannot be, namely both present and absent
within Davidson's understanding of truth, meaning, and interpretation.
Prior to taking up the consequences of the fracturing of universality, its
becoming the site of differences and not identity, I want to examine the
relationship between the impossibility of an 'unmediated touch' and the
project of rational recovery. The importance of the project is considerable
within many attempts to write the history of philosophy, since the
assumption of shared rationality overcomes the major problem introduced
by history, namely temporal alterity. Shared rationality redefines the
relationship between self and other, turning it into a relationship between
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same and same. Once again the existence of difference is based on an

underlying identity, and furthermore it should now be dear that it makes
original difference an impossibility because it necessitates the fracturing of
original identity, thereby ruling out of court a project delimited by shared
rationality. Specifying original difference means locating conflict as
original arid accord as a possible secondary effect. There is therefore no
ground of difference. Difference is itself original. In order to identify
original difference, what will be preferred is the term 'anoriginal'.
The result of the movement from self and other to same and same is that
history and time are effaced because of what is shared. Sameness and
similitude — and, of course, deviations from the same — become the context
of philosophy's history. A Davidsonian-inspired history of philosophy is
possible. Indeed, Richard Rorty in a recent paper accepts Davidson's
conception of 'holding true' as forming a fundamental part of the
interpretation of past philosophy.3 He does not dwell, even for a moment,
on any of the problems presented by having to assume the universality of
'holding true' — problems which, as has been seen, threaten the alterity
and hence the historicity of the history of philosophy.
Davidson's 'unmediated touch' must be read as delimiting the relationship
not just between self and world but also between the interpreter and the object
of interpretation. It has already been argued that the desire for an
'unmediated touch' is an impossible desire which cannot be fulfilled.
However, the impossibility is not of its own accord an argument for the
existence of conceptual schemes. In fact it is perhaps advisable to move
away from the language of conceptual schemes, in so far as an argument
against Davidson's position is not ipso facto an argument for or even an
assertion of any form of relativism.
The' impossibility of avoiding mediation (even, of course, in Davidson's
own terms) means that the relationship between self and other can never be
turned into a relationship between self and self (same and same). This does
not mean that there is not anything to recover — quite to the contrary — but
it does mean that recovery cannot take place under the guise of shared and

258 TEXTUAL PRACTICE

 universal rationality. The existence of mediation does not entail the
existence of, for example, Kuhnian paradigms or Foucauldian epistemes. It
is rather that the project of rational recovery is impossible within the terms
that it sets itself. The enduring self/other relation means that alterity can
never be reduced to identity. The anoriginal is primordially present.4 The
consequence of the failure of rational recovery is that not only must
translation be rethought but the philosophical project linked to it must be
seriously questioned.
Recovery is articulated in terms of the opposition between the inside and
the outside. What has to be recovered is located outside the language of
recovery. Recovery and translation are linked, since both involve the
outside coming to be expressed inside the language of recovery. Calling
into question the possibility of rational recovery is equally to call into
question the opposition between the outside and the inside. The challenge
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therefore lies in thinking translation and thus philosophy, or philosophy

and thus translation, beyond the purview of the opposition inside/outside.
The task, at this stage at least, must be situated in relation to the way in
which universality figures within the Davidsonian programme. Universality
grounded the programme, and yet the conception of universality that
enabled the grounding to take place, namely the universal as transcen-
dental, is also excluded by the programme from the programme itself.
Universality, instead of existing as a self-enclosed identity, is split and as
such differs from itself. It is both ground and groundless. Within the
programme it is both inside, of necessity, and yet outside, of necessity.
Universality as difference precludes the possibility of its own unity. The
consequence of universality, if only in the sense used within Davidson's
programme, is that it can no longer define or delimit the practice of either
philosophy or translation.
It may be objected that I have not confronted the real problem of
translation, namely what Walter Benjamin called the translator's 'task': the
solitude of die translator confronting an initially distant though increasingly
familiar text. If, however, the oscillation between the distant and the
familiar delimits the domain of translation and therefore circumscribes the
translator's task, the question that must be asked is how this oscillation
becomes possible? Clearly its possibility is not defined in terms of the
opposition between the inside and the outside. Furthermore, it cannot even
be understood within Davidson's conception of language. For Davidson, as
has been seen, the locus of communication was the speaker (given a
specific context), and language was merely what allowed communication
to take place. Language is therefore no more than a neutral medium of
expression within which beliefs, desires, attitudes, etc., are articulated. If
translation and philosophy have to be rethought beyond the opposition of
inside/outside, then they also have to be rethought beyond that conception
of the relationship between speakers and language in which language has
no life except that proclaimed in the act of speaking. If the relationship
between speakers and language (viewed, of course, as an instance of the
opposition between inside and outside) is also brought into question, then

PHILOSOPHY AND LITERARY THEORY 159

 this amounts to the claim that there is nothing outside language that is
brought within it and as such is given expression. This does not, however,
amount to the claim that everything has become language, but rather
denies the viability of that mode of interpretation which allows for a
distinction between language and world, where it is only language that
presents interpretative problems, and reciprocally where the world is, as far
as interpretation is concerned, unproblematic. Familiarity and distance
should be understood in terms of the notion that world and language are
equally text, and thereby present the 'same' interpretative problems. One is
not outside the other, allowing, supporting, or facilitating its interpretation,
translation, or understanding.
Dissolving the distinction that forms the basis of the project of rational
recovery focuses attention on the object of interpretation and its textual
quality and brings us to the confrontation of the text as other. A relocation
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of the practice of interpretation should start from the question of what it is

about texts that allows for their translation, and hence the related question
— perhaps the 'same' question — of what allows the other to be understood.
If Benjamin's argument that translation is linked to the possibility of
reinscription is accepted, albeit provisionally, then translation becomes
the question of what allows texts/language to live on. It goes without
saying that philosophy lives on in translation, and that translation survives
even philosophy.5

University of Warwick

NOTES

1 Donald Davidson, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1984). Page references in parentheses in the text refer to this edition.
z In Kant's Political Writings, ed. and trans. H. Reiss (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1970), p. 43.
3 Richard Rorty, 'The historiography of philosophy: four genres', in R. Rorty,
J. B. Schneewind, and Q. Skinner (eds), Philosophy in History (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1984).
4 I have enlarged upon this conception of temporality in 'The decline of art:
Benjamin's Aura', The Oxford Journal of Art, 24 (1986), and in ch. 6 of Studied
Translations (forthcoming).
5 These latter thoughts on translation have been influenced by some of Jacques
Derrida's recent discussions of this topic, e.g. L'Oreille de l'autre, otobio-
graphies, transferts (Montreal, 1984), 'Des tours de Babel', in Difference in
Translation, ed. J. F. Graham (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), and
'Letter to a Japanese friend', trans. A. E. Benjamin and D. C. Wood, in D. C.
Wood (ed.), Derrida and Difference (Warwick: Parousia Press, 1985).

2ÖO TEXTUAL PRACTICE