BRILL Research in Phenomenology 37 (2007) 147-159 Paul Ricoeur and the Hermeneutics of Translation Richard Kearney Baton College Abstract “This cast looks at how Ricoeur’ heemeneudesFancrions as bach pllsophy afteansltion and philosophy ar anlation. tsar with overview of Rico theores inthe light ofthe history ofthe philosophy of translacion and shows how he, flowing in the footsteps of Gadamer understands the at of ranslacion asan are of negoiating and mediating berween Self and Other Te chen goct on wo explore the hermeneuti model of trinsasion, advanced In Ricoeut’s late: ‘work in ters of three main paradigms: lingutc, ontlagid and ethical. The esp concludes witha dscusion of che crucial role played by eraslacion in hospital, pluralism and pardon. Keywords hermeneutics, eansation, ethies, memory hoeptlty ‘Translation has been a central feature of Paul Ricoeur's philosophy, chough it ‘was not until his later yeats that he made it an explicie theme of his work. Well before Ricoeur actually thematized the subject, the art of translation was something he actually performed in his philosophical practice. Ricoeus was an inveterate mediator, someone who navigated and negotiated transits between rival positions. He was, it could be argued, unequaled as a diplomat of philo- sophical exchange, forever finding a point of commerce—if not always resolu- sion—between ostensibly irreconcilable viewpoints. Consider his endless brokering and commuting berween Continental and Anglo-Saxon thought at the most general evel. Then, within the Continental tradition morespecifcally, between existentialism and structuralism; berween hermeneutics and Critical ‘Thcory; berween phenomenology and the human sciences; berween Freudian psychoanalysis and Hegelian dialectics; berween literary theory and the phi- losophy of religion; between historical understanding ( Vescehen) and scientific explanation (Erklaren); between psychology and neuro-science; between eth- ics and politics, and so on. And consider, finally, his many acts of mediating translation within hermeneutics itself between romantic hermeneutics (from Rovio Nl NY, Lane, 207 Dor MLneM se oAarKtss6I048 R Kearney | Recarc in Phenomenology 37 (2007) 147-159. Schleiermacher and Dilthey) and critical or radieal hermeneutics developed by Habermas and Derrida, respectively) ‘Whar is remarkable in all these critical intercessons is that Ricoeur never ceased co respect both adversurial partners in the exchange. He defily rans- muted conflict into conversation without ever sacrificing depth of conviction ‘or acuity of evaluation. In his philosophical role as translator, Ricoeur was, L believe, unrivaled in his time, Indeed, one could say that Ricoeur's thought represented both philosophy as translation and a philosophy of translation. In ‘what follows below I will concentrare mainly on the latter. 1, Ricoeur's Philosophy of Translation Jn On Translation, one of Ricoeur’ last works, published in French in 2004 and in English in 2006, Ricoeur treats directly ofthe processes and problems of translation, Hie outlines ewo paradigms. Ficst, the linguistic paradigm, which refers to how words relate to meanings within language or between languages. ‘And, second, the ontological paradigm, which refers to how translation occurs beeween one human self and another. Let me say something about each.! 8). The Linguistic Paradigm. Language sone, yet languages ate many. In this very distinction lies the primordial need for translation, What al languages share in common is a capacity to mediate beeween a human speaker and @ ‘world of meanings (actual and possible) spoken about. Buc if this Function constitutes the unifying property of language, the fat cha there exists a pur rality of languages, both living and dead, means that we are faced with a dou- ble duty of teanslation, internal and external. In short, one of Ricoeur's great originales isthe way in which he demonstrates how translation is both intra lingual and incerlingual Ricocur’s understanding of the historical development of the philosophy of translation helps clarify the issue. Some ofthe earliest reflections on the prob- lems and cnigmas of translation go back, at least in Western history, t0 che major encounters between cultures, In classical times, we find the translation beeween Greek and Latin languages to bea crucial landmark, while the famous feats of biblical translation from Hebrew and Aramaic to Greek and Latin— ranging from the Septuagint co the decisive translations of St. Jerome (author of the Vulgate), of later again, of Lacherin German, or the King James authors Paul Riooeus, Sur le oduct (Pars: Bayard, 2004); cransaed by Ele Drennan as On Translation (London: Rouledge, 2000.. Kearney! Research in Phenomenology 37 (2007) 147-159 149 in English—mark yet another set of mileston tic translation, ‘One of the earliest words for a translator in Greeke was hermeneus and in Latin interpres. Both terms, notes Ricoeur, carry the sense of an intermediary laboring berween two distinct languages or speakers. The term manslazor arses from the Latin verb, rangfera, ranfére, ranslatum, which evolves into the term translatare, translater in the Romance languages of the Middle Ages (hence he later English translate). In the fifteenth cencury, the Italian human ist Leonardo Bruni became the first modem thinker to devote an entire scientific treatise to che art of translation, entiled De Interpretatione Recta (1420). Here Ricoeur locates the original appearance of the term smaducere, refecring to a unitary concept of translation and giving rise in the sixteenth, century to the French term sradueteur, employed by the humanist Etienne Dolet.? The twentieth century saw a number of influential theorists of transla~ tion, from Croce and Rosenzweig to Benjamin (The Task of the Translator) and Steiner (After Babel). Ricoeur's own recent study on translation follows in the footsteps of these intellectual predecessors. What Ricoeur adds isa singularly hermeneutic twist, as I endeavor to show below. ‘As mentioned, Ricoeur underscores the way in which some of the great translations of biblical and classical cexts played formative roles in the develop- ‘ment of both national and cultural identities. He is fully conscious of the dramatic influence exerted by Luther's German translation of the Bible, or the Moravian Brethem’s Czech translation, or the Genevan French translation, rot to mention the crucial role played by renditions of classical texts in the biteh of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, or Romanticism. In all these instances of incer-linguistie translation, the transmigration of one linguistic thesauirus into another was linked with modern ideas of human emancipation and change. And the momentous encounter with the Other outside the nation, of indeed the European world generally—wich the discovery of other continents and civilizations from the fifteenth century onwards—is a crucial reminder for Ricoeur of the modern necessity of translation. Thus understood, the history of inter-linguis- 2 Tam indebred to Dominic Jeroline for this reference to Doles and co several other sources con the history of translation cited below. See Jrvlios illuminating pape, “The Hermencutis fuk Sef and the Paradigm of Translation,” presented ac the Rome International Conference on “Translation (April 2004) a his laroduction to La rduzion: Una se eie (Breen: Moseel- 35, See also his pioneering carey, “Herméseutique et traduction, Uautre eeranger. te" Arshiver de Philasophie 63 (2000): 79-93.150 R. Kearney |Research in Penomenalgy 37 (2007) 147-159 translation has always been, in Antoine Berman's resonant (and vireually uuntransatable!) phrase, oft cited by Ricoeus—unegpreuve de” dranger? b) The Ontological Paradigm. Translation is understood by Ricoeur in both ‘specific and a general sense, In the specific sense—the one in common con temporary usage, outlined above—it signals the work of translating the mean- ings of one particular language into another. In the more genetic sense, it indicates the ontological act of speaking as a way of nor only translating one- self o oneself (inner to outer, private to public, unconscious to conscious) but also, and more explicitly, of translating oneself to others. As Dominico Jervo- lino puts it; “To speak is already to translate even when one is speaking one’s ‘own native language ot when one is speaking to oneself; further, one has to take into account the plurality of languages, which demand 2 more exacting ‘encounter with the different Other. One is tempted to say that there isa plu- rality of languages because we are originally plural, The encounter with the Other cannot be avoided. [Fone accepts che necessary nature of che encounter linguistic pluralism appears no longer as a malediction, as che received inter pretation ofthe myth of Babel would have it, But as a condision which requires us to surrender the all-encompassing dream of a perfect language (and of a global translation, so co speak, without residues). The partiality and the Finicude of individual languages is then viewed not as an insurmountable obstacle but as the very precondition of communication among individuals." “This ontological model of translation is, I believe, one of Ricoeur’s most consequential insights. It demonstrates how and why translation matters. And ities ac the basis of his ethical and political theory as we shall seein the next section, Ricoeur compares the work of the translator to that of a middleman between “two masters,” between an author and a reader, a selfand another. He underscores the word “work,” stressing the importance of both (i) a labor of ‘memory, and (ii) a labor of mourning. As such, Ricoeur borrows liberally feom Freud’ Famous notion of working through’ (Duarcharbeinung). This emphasis on the workelike character of translation refers to the com- ‘mon experience of tension and suffering that the translator undergoes as he! she checks the basic impulse co reduce che otherness of the other, chereby stubsuming alien meaning into one’ own scheme of things. The work of trans- lation might thus be said to carry a double duty: to expropriate oneself from "© Antoine Berman, Lipreae de unger (Pars Gallimard, 1984). © "The Heemeneutis ofthe Self” 6 st also Paul Zum, el ow inachvement (Pati Seu, 1997)R Kearney {Research in Phenomenology 37 (2007) 147-159 151 oneself as one appropriates the other to oneself, In other words, we are called to make our language pur on the stranger’ clothes at the same ime as we invite the stranger to step into the fabric of our own spesch. The result of a good translation is when one language rediscovers itself in and as another (soi- ‘méme come un autre). Ricocur argues that good cranslations involve a crucial openness co the ‘other. Indeed he recommends that we be prepared to forfeit our native lan- guage’s claim to self-sufficiency—which can sometimes go to extremes of nationalism and chauvinism—in order to "host’ (qua Aaspes) the foreign’ (oss). As the linguist Emile Benveniste points out in Le Vocabulaire des Inst- sutions Indo-Européenes, the two terms hospes and astis are etymologically akin. Following Benveniste, Ricoeur writes: “Despite the conflicual charac- ter which renders the task of the translator dramatic, he or she will ind satis faction in what I would like co call dnguisic hospitality. Is predicament is that ‘of a correspondence without complete adhesion. This is a fragile condition, ‘which admies of no verification other than a new translation... sortof dupli- cation of the work of the translator which is possible in virtue of a minimum of bilingualism: to translate afresh after the translator.” And he adds (agai On Translation): “Just as in a narration it is always possible to tell the story in. a different way, likewise in translation it is always possible co translate other- ‘wise, without ever hoping to bridge the gap berween equivalence and perfect adhesion. Linguistic hospitaliey,cherefore, is the ac of inhabiting the word of the Other paralleled by the ace of receiving the word of the Other into one's ‘own home, one's own duwelling,"* Linguistic hospicalicy calls us to forgo the lure of omnipotence: the illusion of a total translation char would provide a perfect replica of the original. Instead it asks us co respect the fact that the semantic and syntactic fields of ‘wo languages are not the same, nor exactly reducible the one to the other. Connotations, contexts, and cultural characteristics will always exceed any slide rule of neat equation becween tongues. Short of some kind of abstract symbolic logio—or Fancasy Esperanto logos—there is no single unitary lan- ‘guage. Translation, as George Steiner has powerfully reminded us, is always after babel? Ics forever compelled to acknowledge the finite limits of speech, 1 ile Benveniste, Le vocebulan des nition indo-eurgpienne (Pari: Minuit, 1969). © Sur le radaction, 19-20, George Seciner, Afr Babel: Arpect of Language and Translation (Oxford: Oxford Universisy Pres, 1975). Foam exellent analysis ofthe ontlogiclaspeas of tanslaion se John Sallis, On Trandation (Bloomington, IN: Indiana Uaivescy Pre, 2002).152 R. Kearney Reseach in Phenomenology 37 (2007) 147-159 the multiplicity of different tongues. To function authentically, therefore, the teanslator must zenounce the dream ofa return co some adamantine logos of pure correspondences. The attempt to retrieve 2 pre-apsarian paradise oftime- less signs is futile. And sometimes dangerous, Even the Enlighteament ideal of a perfect universal language was obliged to recognize the genuine resistances of cultural differences predicated upon linguistic diversities. Indeed, most attempts to instantiate an absolute universal language proved, in poine of fact, to be thinly disguised impesial ploys o impose one particular language (eg French, English, Spanish) over other politically subordinate ones. Here Ricoeur's deep ethical commitment to social justice and equity come to the fore, a point co which we shall return in the next section, ‘As soon as there is language there is interprecation, that is, translation, x ‘principio fie interpres. Words exis in time and space, and thus have a history ‘of meanings that alter and evolve. All translation involves some aspect of di logue berween selfand stranger. Dialogue means just tha, da-legein, welcom- ing the difference. Ie is for this reason that in his essay “The Paradigm of “Translation,” Ricoeur proposes translation as a model of hermeneutics. Both in its normal role asa transfer of meaning from one language to another and ts more specific role asa transfer of understanding between different mem- bers of the same linguistic community, translation entails an exposure to steangeness, We are dealing with both an alterty residing outside the home language and an alteriy residing within ie. “The gap becween a hypothetical perfect language and the concreteness of « living language is fele agnin and ‘again in che linguistic exchange: itis always possible co say the same a different way, Now, to say something in a different way, to say it in other terms, is exactly what a translator does from one language to the other, The inputs atthe two ends, che two halves of the problem, so to speak, clarify each other and present again the enigma and che richness of che relationship wich the Other”* Ie mighe be noted that Ricocur’ theory of translation here follows a similar ‘emphasis to his theory of the text as model of interpretation in the seventies and eighties. In both cases, Ricoeur underscores the ‘distancing’ of sens. In "the Hlermeneuser of Sef” Bee so Jeli, “Traut as Paradigm for Hermenesics and Ie Implications for an Ethie af Hospi in Ars nero vol. 5 (Minster: Lit Ver lag, 2000), 57-69,R. Kearney! Research in Phenomenology 37 (2007) 147-159 153 the case of che wrieven text, this refers to how meaning gains autonomy from 1) the intention of the original author (e.g., Homer); 2) che original world of circumstances in which the author wrote or which she/he wrote about (Homeric Greece); and 3) the original readers of the text when it was first produced (che Greek community who read Homer's Ody). ‘A similae aspect of ‘dstansiation’ occurs in cranslation where the estrange- ment of meaning precedes and even provokes the subsequent act of reading, as ‘renewed reappropriation of the original meaning. Oras Ricoeur liked to put it, the bese path to selhood is through otherness. Thus while Schleiermacher and the romantic hermencuts tended to favor a somewhat Platonic model of dialogue as return (anamnesilaneignung) to original meanings, Ricoeur might be said to favor a more Aristotelian model that stresses a) a plurality of meanings and b) a methodical appreciation of the complex ‘poetis' and ‘rhes- ‘rics’ involved in the interpretation of linguistic meaning. (Fence, as already noted, the importance of Ricoeur’s call, pace Gadamer and Heidegger, for a rigorous critical relationship with the human sciences—including, linguis- tics—and a surpassing of the old dichotomy between ‘understanding’ and ‘explanation’. Though it has to be said that the gap between Ricoeur and Gadamer became quite narrow in the end.) For Ricoeur the matter is clear: there is no selfunderstanding possible ‘without the labor of mediation through signs, symbols, narratives, and tex. “the idealist romantic subjece, sovereign master of itself and all ic surveys, is replaced by an engaged self chat only finds itself after it has traversed the field of foreignness and returned to itself again, altered and enlarged, ot as James Joyce would say, ‘othered’. The mai gives way to the oi, ot more precisely to ‘oi-méne comme un autre, The are of translation epitomizes this journey from self through the other, reminding us of the irreducible finitude and contin- gency ofall language. And here, of course, we find echoes of Ricoeur’ early ‘writings on finitude and fallibilty from Freedom and Nature to Fallble Man. For Ricoeur, the tsk of outer translation finds correspondences in the work ‘of inner ctanslation. Indeed the very problem of human identity, as he shows in Oneself-as Another, involves a discovery of an other within the very depths of the self This ‘other wichin’ is itself plural, signifying by turns the uncon- scious, the body, the call of conscience, the traces of our relations with other hhuman beings, or che sign of transcendence inscribed in the deepest interiority of the human heart. This means thar the question of human identity or, more ‘eactly, the answer to the question “who are you?” always entails a eranslation between the self and others both within the self and outside the self. Every subject, as Ricoeur puts it, is a tapestry of stories heard and told. This makes154 R, Kearney | Rewarch in Phenomenology 37 (2007) 157-159 of each one of us a natratve identity, operating as both authors and readers of ‘our own lives. Which is another way of saying, translasors of our own lives. Life stories and life histories are always parts of larger scoties and histoties in which we find ourselves entwined (empéiré). This is where the paradigm of teanslation as transference to and fo, forward and back, reveals its everyday power. “To think, wo speak is always to wanslate, even when one speaks to oneself, when one discovers the traces ofthe Other in oneself Afterall, lan- guage, understood as a peculiarly human attribute, is always coupled to a specific and particular language and eo the varity and plurality of languages.”” Indeed, Ricoeur goes so far as co suggest that che Future ethos of European politics, and eventually of world polities, should be one based upon an exchange of memories and narratives beeween different nations, for itis only ‘when we translate our own wounds into che language of strangers and retrans- Tate the wounds of strangers into our own language that healing and recon-