Translation and Philosophy

To what extent is philosophy reliant on translation and how does this practice impact on philosophy itself? How should philosophical texts be translated? Is translation inherently philosophical? Can philosophy be described as a ‘type of translation’? The essays in this collection seek to respond to these intriguing and provocative questions. Exploring a wide range of issues, from the complexities of translating ambiguous philosophical terms to the role of language in concepts of identity and society, each essay highlights the manner in which the two disciplines rely on (and intersect with) each other. Drawing the collection together is an understanding of both translation and philosophy as practices which seek for meaning in our complex relationship with language and the world.

Lisa Foran is a tutor and doctoral candidate in the School of Philosophy at University College Dublin and a visiting graduate student at the Archives Husserl (ENS) Paris. Her research, funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, focuses on the relationship between translation and the Other in the work of Jacques Derrida.