试译:“The humanistic Intellectual: Eleven Theses” R. Rorty
人文学人:十一立论近来翻已故罗蒂教授的《哲学与社会希望》(Philosohy and Social Hope, Penguin Books, 1999)其中收录此文(pp.127-130),在这里尝试逐句翻译,试探引起讨论的可能。
1. We should not try to define 'the humanities' by asking what the humanities departments share which distinguishes them from the rest of the university. 我们不应该尝试以询问大学人文部和将他们从其余部门区分出来的共享些什么来界定“人文”。(似乎应该截断句子来疏通文义,但还是觉得绕口难通,谁来帮帮我?)The interesting dividing line is, instead, one that cuts across departments and disciplinary matrices.有趣的界线毋宁是贯穿部门和学科矩阵的。It divides people busy conforming to well-understood criteria for making contributions to knowledge from people trying to expand their own moral imaginations.它把忙着符合已深知其条件而为知识做贡献的人们和尝试拓展自己道德想象的人们隔离开来。These latter people read books in order to enlarge their sense of what is possible and important - either for themselves as individuals or for their society.后者是为了扩大他们对可能及重要的感觉——无论是为他们个人抑或为他们的社会——而读书的。Call these people the 'humanistic intellectuals'.这些人称作“人文学人”。One often finds more such people in the anthropology department than in the classics department, and sometimes more in law school than in the philosophy department.通常会在人类学部比在古典部找到更多类似的人,有时候在法学院比哲学部多。
(还有十个立论,看看这个帖子的反应如何再说。) [见猎心喜,请兄指正。有些地方可能是因为我们使用的语言不同导致差异,也就是说法不一样。]
人文学者:十一个论点
1. We should not try to define 'the humanities' by asking what the humanities departments share which distinguishes them from the rest of the university.
我们不应试图通过追问什么是人学科学院系共有的并将其与大学其他部分区别开来的东西来定义“人文科学”。
The interesting dividing line is, instead, one that cuts across departments and disciplinary matrices.
相反,真正有趣的分界线是跨越诸多院系和学科母体的。
It divides people busy conforming to well-understood criteria for making contributions to knowledge from people trying to expand their own moral imaginations.
它把那些忙于遵从已深入人心的诸多标准以为知识做贡献的人与那些试图拓宽自己道德想象的人区别开来。
These latter people read books in order to enlarge their sense of what is possible and important - either for themselves as individuals or for their society.
后面这种人读书是为了扩大他们对哪些事有可能及哪些事才重要的感觉,无论是为他们个人抑或为他们的社会。
Call these people the 'humanistic intellectuals'.
把这些人称作“人文学者”吧。
One often finds more such people in the anthropology department than in the classics department, and sometimes more in law school than in the philosophy department.
我们通常会在人类学系比在古典文学系找到更多这样的人,有时候在法学院比哲学系多。 引用第0楼liumx2000于2009-03-26 10:32发表的 试译:“The humanistic Intellectual: Eleven Theses” R. Rorty :
人文学人:十一立论
近来翻已故罗蒂教授的《哲学与社会希望》(Philosohy and Social Hope, Penguin Books, 1999)其中收录此文(pp.127-130),在这里尝试逐句翻译,试探引起讨论的可能。
1. 恩,想起来不知道从哪道门缝儿里偷听到有人讨论过这个词儿:disciplinary matrix,听爱哭版解释,好像明白了。
这里是用的复数,大概每个学科都有此种基质?
后面那一处错您指得很准。
对您的翻译我很佩服。别理会我搅局,把您译的都贴出来吧 引用第3楼白马西北驰于2009-03-26 13:48发表的 第一句能否拆句为:试问什么是人文院系所共有的?若以此作为区分人文与其他院系的界限,是不对的。
这类翻译好难!权当凑个热闹吧。 谈一句:The interesting dividing line is, instead, one that cuts across departments and disciplinary matrices.
cut across译“贯穿”或“跨越”似嫌不够醒豁或可能导致误读。
按照最后一句的启发,此句的意思是说第一句中所指涉的粗分(人文系部VS.非人文系部)并不足为取,还有待进一步细化。试译:
那条有意思的分界线,该划至诸人文系部之间乃至诸学科特质之间才是。
解说:此译中将and当作both..and..来解,同时认为and有increasingly或further的内涵。matrix在范式讨论中强调的是学科质的规定性或基准,译为“学科基质”上佳,但这里强调学科与学科间差异和个性特出,改用“学科特质”或“学科特色”似更有理。
Re:试译:“The humanistic Intellectual: Eleven Theses” R. Rorty, 2~5
谢谢各位捧场!各位的悉心纠谬太棒了。
我想先继续翻译下去。
2. If one asks what good these people do, what social function they perform, neither “teaching” nor “research” is a very good answer.
若问及这些人有何好处、行何社会功用,“教导”与“研究”都不是好答案。
Their idea of teaching—or at least of the sort of teaching they hope to do—is not exactly the communication of knowledge, but more like stirring the kids up.
他们有关教导的观念—至少那种他们希望是的教导—不完全是知识的交流,而更加是把孩子们搅上来。
When they apply for a leave or a grant, they may have to fill out forms about the aims and methods of their so-called research projects, but all they really want to do is read a lot more books in the hope of becoming a different sort of person.
当他们申请放假或经费时,也许必须填写他们的所谓研究计划的目标与方法,但是他们实在是想要阅读更多书籍,希望成为一个异样的人。
3. So the real social function of the humanistic intellectuals is to instill doubts in the students about the students’ own self-images, and about the society to which they belong.
因此人文学人真正的社会功用是给学生们注入有关自己的自我形象,以及他们所在的社会的疑问。
These people are the teachers who help ensure that the moral consciousness of each new generation is slightly different from that of the previous generation.
这些人是帮助确保新一代与上一代的道德观感稍微不同的教师。
4. But when it comes to the rhetoric of public support for higher education, we do not talk much about this social function.
但是当来到给高等教育公共支持的说词时,我们对此社会功用不作多谈。
We cannot tell boards of trustees, government commissions, and the like, that our function is to stir things up, to make our society feel guilty, to keep it off balance.
我们不能告诉信托局、政府特委会等等,说我们的功用是要搅局、使我们的社会觉得有罪、使它不安。
We cannot say that the taxpayers employ us to make sure that their children will think differently than they do.
我们不能说纳税人聘请我们来保证他们的孩子会和他们有不同的想法。
Somewhere deep down, everybody—even the average taxpayer—knows that that is one of the things colleges and universities are for.
虽说在内心深处,每个人—包括平庸的纳税人—都知道那是学府及大学其中一个要素。
But nobody can afford to make this fully explicit and public.
但是无人敢于完全地公开清楚。
5. We humanistic intellectuals find ourselves in a position analogous to that of the “social-gospel” or “liberation theology” clergy, the priests and ministers who think of themselves as working to build the kingdom of God on earth.
我等人文学人发现自己位于有如“社会福音”或“自由神学”的认为自己是为上帝在人间立国的传道人、祭司以及牧师。
Their opponents describe their activity as leftist political action.
他们的对手把他们的活动描述成左派政治活动。
The clergy, they say, are being paid to relay God’s word, but are instead meddling in politics.
他们说传道人是受薪来传达上帝的话的,却卷入政坛里。
We are accused of being paid to contribute to and communicate knowledge, while instead “politicizing the humanities.”
我们被控受薪来贡献及传播知识,却“把人文政治化”。
Yet we cannot take the idea of unpoliticized humanities any more seriously than our opposite numbers in the clergy can take seriously the idea of a depoliticized church.
不过我们还是无法比传道人更认真地对待去政治化教会的概念来认真地对待非政治化人文的概念。
(这句译得很差,好像有扭转原意之嫌。暂时搁下再说,各位请便。) 2. If one asks what good these people do, what social function they perform, neither “teaching” nor “research” is a very good answer.
问及此类人等贡献何在,所起社会作用何如,绝非“教学”“研究”之说所能勉强作答。
Their idea of teaching—or at least of the sort of teaching they hope to do—is not exactly the communication of knowledge, but more like stirring the kids up.
其于教学之理念——或且就其所望之教学言——亦非知识传递一语所能尽述,激发学生之属或谓其旨所在。
When they apply for a leave or a grant, they may have to fill out forms about the aims and methods of their so-called research projects, but all they really want to do is read a lot more books in the hope of becoming a different sort of person.
为求审批立项故,其或得敷衍表单以彰所谓科研规划之目的方法诸节末,而其真心所愿,惟在博览群书,以图自新而已矣。
时间有限,且配合一段。这段让我想起王佐良的“论读书”,也来点假文言供一笑^_^ 陆兴华先生几年前好像就翻译过这个,贴过来供大家参考:
http://bbsdis.uni.cc/viewthread.php?tid=1161&extra=page%3D25
译/评罗蒂: <文科知识分子十一条>
陆兴华
Re:试译:“The humanistic Intellectual: Eleven Theses” R. Rorty6~11
6. We are still expected to make the ritual noises to which the trustees and the funding agencies are accustomed—noises about “objective criteria of excellence,” “fundamental moral and spiritual values,” “the enduring questions posed by the human condition,” and so on, just as the liberal clergy is supposed to mumble their way through creeds written in an earlier and simpler age.我们还是要向已经习以为常的信托人和基金代理发出仪式噪音——关于“高尚的客观标准”、“基本的道德与精神价值”、“用人类境况发出的恒久问题”等等的噪音,就如自由传道人应该通过在早前较简明时代写好的方式呢喃。
But those of us who have been impressed by the anti-Platonic, anti-essentialist, historicizing, naturalizing writers of the last few centuries (people like Hegel, Darwin, Freud, Weber, Dewey, and Foucault) must either become cynical or else put our own tortured private constructions on these ritual phrases.
而我们之中那些曾为反柏拉图式、反本质主义、历史化、自然化的上数世纪作者(如黑格尔、达尔文、弗洛伊德、韦伯以及福柯等人)影响的必须或者变得犬儒,否则把自己备受鞭烤的私人建构置放于这些仪式阶段之上。
7. This tension between public rhetoric and private sense of mission leaves the academy in general, and the humanistic intellectuals in particular, vulnerable to heresy-hunters.
这公共说词与私人任务感之间的张力,置广至学术界精至人文学人,于怪论猎人伤害之地。
Ambitious politicians like William Bennett—or cynical journalists like the young William Buckley (author of God and Man at Yale) or Charles Sykes (author of Profscam)—can always point out gaps between official rhetoric and actual practice.
有志向的从政者,如威廉贝涅特—或者犬儒新闻人,如青年威廉巴克利(《耶鲁的神与人》作者)查尔斯赛克斯(《教授骗局》作者)—经常可以指出公开说词与实际操作之间的距离。
Usually, however, such heresy-hunts peter out quickly in the face of faculty solidarity.
然而,在学院团结的局面下这些怪论猎捕很快就消散。
The professors of physics and law, people whom nobody wants to mess with, can be relied upon to rally around fellow AAUP members who teach anthropology or French, even if they neither know nor care what the latter do.
物理学以及法学教授,这些无人要冲撞的人,可以依靠在和其他如教导人类学或法语的美利坚大学教授协会会员连成一气。
8. In the current flap about the humanities, however, the heresy-hunters have a more vulnerable target than usual.
然而,在现有的人文之扉后面,这些怪论猎人有比平时更容易伤害的目标。
This target is what Allan Bloom calls “the Nietzscheanized left”.
此目标就是艾伦布罗姆所称的“尼采化左派”。
This left is an anomaly in America.
此左派在美利坚是个怪物。
In the past the American left has asked our country to be true to its ideals, to go still further along the path of expanding human freedom which our forefathers mapped: the path which led us from the abolition of slavery through women’s suffrage, the Wagner Act, and the Civil Rights Movement, to contemporary feminism and gay liberation.
过去美利坚左派呼吁我国坚持理想,在我们先辈划出的扩展人类自由道路上走得更远:带领我们走在由消除奴隶到压制女性、瓦格纳法令、以及民权运动、直到同期的女性主义和同性恋解放的道路上。
But the Nietzscheanized left tells the country it is rotten to the core—that it is a racist, sexist, imperialist society, one which can’t be trusted an inch, one whose every utterance must be ruthlessly deconstructed.
但是尼采化左派告诉国家这些都是烂到核心去的——是种族主义、性别主义、帝国主义社会的,全不可信靠、它所有的话语都必须无情地解构。
9. Another reason this left is a vulnerable target is that it is extraordinarily self-obsessed and ingrown, as well as absurdly over-philosophized.
另一个此左派易受伤害的理由是它格外自恋及内向,乃至荒谬地过度哲学化。
It takes seriously Paul de Man’s weird suggestion that “one can approach the problems of ideology and by extension the problems of politics only on the basis of critical-linguistic analysis”.
它认真看待保罗迪曼“能够单凭批判语言学分析基础伸向意识形态问题以及延伸到政治问题”的怪建议。
It seems to accept Hillis Miller’s fantastic claim that “the millenium would come if all men and women became good readers in de Man’s sense”.
它看来接受希尔斯米勒“[世界和平与人类公平]的千年将会在所有的男男女女在迪曼意义上成为好读者之下来临”的虚幻论述。
When asked for a utopian sketch of our country’s future, the new leftists reply along the lines of one of Foucault’s most fatuous remarks.
询及我国未来的乌托邦构想时,新左派依循福柯最为愚蠢的论调的线上回复。
When asked why he never sketched a utopia, Foucault said, “I think that to imagine another system is to extend our participation in the present system.”
询及他为何不作乌托邦构想时,福柯说:“我认为想象另一个系统是参与现有系统的延续。”
De Man, and Foucault were (and Miller is) a lot better than these unfortunate remarks would suggest, but some of their followers are a lot worse.
迪曼和福柯(及米勒)比这些不幸的论调可能会造成的要好得太多,但是他们的尾随者则要坏得太多了。
This over-philosophized and self-obsessed left is the mirror image of the over-philosophized and self-obsessed Straussians on the right.
这些过度哲学化及自恋的左派是过度哲学化及自恋的斯特劳斯式右派的镜像。
The contempt of both groups for contemporary American society is so great that both have rendered themselves impotent when it comes to national, state, or local politics.
这两派对现今美利坚社会的轻视是那么巨大,乃至当来到国家、州属、地方政治上时把自己变得无能。
This means that they get to spend all their energy on academic politics.
这意味着他们可以花上所有精力在学术政治上。
10. The two groups are currently staging a sham battle about how to construct reading lists.
这两派人目前在如何建立阅读书目上摆了个假擂台。
The Straussians say that the criterion for what books to assign is intrinsic excellence, and the Nietzscheanized left says that it is fairness—e.g., fairness to females, blacks, and Third Worlders.
斯特劳斯派说选入书籍的标准是它的内在优异,而尼采化左派则说是平等——即,对女性、黑人以及第三世界的平等。
They are both wrong.
他们都错了。
Reading lists should be constructed so as to preserve a delicate balance between two needs.
阅读书目应该要在两个需求间保有微妙平衡下建立。
The first is the need of the students to have common reference points with people in previous generations and in other social classes—so that grandparents and grandchildren, people who went to the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater and people who went to Stanford, will have read a lot of the same books.
首要的需求是学生们与上代和其他社会等级之间有共同基点——以便祖辈和孙辈,在怀沃特的威斯康辛大学上学和在斯坦福上学的,会阅读许多同样的书籍。
The second is the need of the teachers to be able to teach the books which have moved them, excited them, changed their lives—rather than having to teach a syllabus handed down by a committee.
其次的需求是教师们能够用感动他们、使他们激动、改变他们生活的书籍来教导——而不是用一个委员会传下来的纲要来教导。
11. Philosophers of education, well-intended committees, and governmental agencies have attempted to understand, define, and manage the humanities.
教育哲学家、善意的委员会、以及政府机关曾尝试理解、界定以及管理人文。
The point, however, is to keep the humanities changing fast enough so that they remain indefinable and unmanageable.
然而,要点在于使人文快速到足以维持在不可界定及不能管理之中来变化。
All we need to keep them changing that fast is good old-fashioned academic freedom.
我们唯一需要维持他们那么快改变的是良好的老式学术自由。
Given freedom to shrug off the heresy-hunters and their cries of “politicization!”, as well as freedom for each new batch of assistant professors to despise and repudiate the departmental Old Guard to whom they owe their jobs, the humanities will continue to be in good shape.
授予以摆脱怪论猎人及他们“政治化!”叫喊的自由,以及每批新副教授厌恶及排斥他们规欠他们职责的院系老守卫的自由,人文就会处于良好的状态。
If you don’t like the ideological weather in the local English department these days, wait a generation.
如果你不喜欢这些日在本地英语部的意识形态气象,等一代吧。
Watch what happens to the Nietzscheanized left when it tries to replace itself, along about the year 2010.
看看大约2010年时尼采化左派尝试自我替代时发生什么事。
I’m willing to bet that the brightest new Ph.D.’s in English that year will be people who never want to hear the terms “binary opposition” or “hegemonic discourse” again as long as they live.
我愿意打赌,那时候最亮眼的英语新博士会是一辈子也不想再听到诸如“二元对立”或“霸权论述”等术语的。 关于“高尚的客观标准”、“基本的道德与精神价值”、“用人类境况发出的恒久问题”等等的噪音,就如自由传道人应该通过在早前较简明时代写好的方式呢喃。
“objective criteria of excellence,” “fundamental moral and spiritual values,” “the enduring questions posed by the human condition,” and so on, just as the liberal clergy is supposed to mumble their way through creeds written in an earlier and simpler age.
关于“判定优秀的客观标准”,“根本的道德价值与精神价值”,“人类境况提出的恒久问题”等等东西的噪音,正如自由派的神职人员也要念叨那些在古旧纯真的年代就已写好的信条一样。
creeds:信条,教会信经(用于宣誓及告解等场合)。
怪论猎人
heresy-hunters
专门迫害异端的卫道士。相似的构词有witch-hunters,驱巫人,爱搞政治迫害、爱整人的人。 Paul de Man,保罗.德.曼
When asked for a utopian sketch of our country’s future, the new leftists reply along the lines of one of Foucault’s most fatuous remarks.
询及我国未来的乌托邦构想时,新左派依循福柯最为愚蠢的论调的线上回复。
人们要求新左派对我们国家的未来做一番乌托邦式的构想,新左派的回答却重蹈了福柯一句最蠢表态的覆辙。 Yet we cannot take the idea of unpoliticized humanities any more seriously than our opposite numbers in the clergy can take seriously the idea of a depoliticized church.
不过我们还是无法比传道人更认真地对待去政治化教会的概念来认真地对待非政治化人文的概念。
有人说文科学术应该摆脱政治化倾向,我们不赞成此说,正如神职人员不会赞成“教会要摆脱政治化倾向”的说法一样。 感谢chaque兄提供陆兴华先生译文,但就我所感兴趣的第二部分看,觉得陆译多有不妥之处,特提出讨论:
2. If one asks what good these people do(如果问这些文科人会对社会做出什么好处), what social function they perform neither `teaching’ nor `research’ is a very good answer (这些文科人远远不光只是教和研).
漏译what social function they perform是明显的。
Their idea of teaching or at least of the sort of teaching they hope to do is not exactly the communication of knowledge, but more like stirring the kids up(更多地是去促/发/鼓动孩子们).
同样有漏译出现。“促/发/鼓动”样式,只能表明译者在进行选词(diction)中的“踌躇”(严复语)而非抉择结果。
When they apply for a leave or a grant(申请学术假和基金时),
试问:申请“学术假”有填表汇报科研计划的需要吗?“学术假”到底是个什么东东呢?词典中关于leave有一解是permission。
they may have to fill out forms about the aims and methods of their so called research projects(申请表上得填上所谓的研究计划的宗旨和方法),
尚可,但句意重心似乎在前边谓语引导部分(may have to)。
but all they really want to do is read a lot more books in the hope of becoming a different sort of person (申请资助的报告上写的和他们心里真想做的是两回事;怎敢把这种实话(鼓动年青人与社会较劲)填上去?).
(to) read a lot more books in the hope of becoming a different sort of person句法分析为(省略to的)不定式作表语,其中in the hope of becoming a different sort of person为介词短语作目的状语,动名词becoming与read所关联应该为同一逻辑主语they。不客气地说,译文暧昧到有到“编译”的嫌疑!(liumx2000兄译“希望成为一个异样的人”,呵呵,让我生出讶异:什么异样的人?超人?对比之下,陆先生彻底改编,通则通也,倒与自说自话无异!)
对陆先生多有无知,网上一搜,“理论车间”“康德一样生活”等多了去了,看来是个真格的大师傅,不过,翻译的本性,我觉得从来就该是就事说事,质量高,我则服,质量有问题,呵呵,不平则鸣,那么且恕小子无礼了(先唱个肥诺)。 陆兴华的译文当然是编译,他自己叫“译/评”。拿过来参考而已。
至于这个译文质量,我觉得表达上生动流畅,值得前面提供了试译的诸位学习。另一方面萝卜快了不洗泥,误译硬伤当然不少。比如unpoliticized和depoliticized都翻译成了“政治化的”,这是怎么都说不过去的。呵呵,我们学习的话,还是学其长处吧。
"学术假"基本上就是sabbatical leave。"apply for a leave",这么翻我看挺好。"词典中关于leave有一解是permission"?哈哈,那就备此一说吧。 呵呵,到底引出正主了。那会儿还暗暗期盼您几位可别瞧不见这个帖啊。 Ambitious politicians like William Bennett—or cynical journalists like the young William Buckley (author of God and Man at Yale) or Charles Sykes (author of Profscam)—can always point out gaps between official rhetoric and actual practice.
有志向的从政者,如威廉贝涅特—或者犬儒新闻人,如青年威廉巴克利(《耶鲁的神与人》作者)查尔斯赛克斯(《教授骗局》作者)—经常可以指出公开说词与实际操作之间的距离。
cynical journalists 译成犬儒新闻人似有不妥吧,讽刺新闻人好些
When asked for a utopian sketch of our country’s future, the new leftists reply along the lines of one of Foucault’s most fatuous remarks.
询及我国未来的乌托邦构想时,新左派依循福柯最为愚蠢的论调的线上回复。
................,新左翼沿用着福柯众多最愚蠢的评论。(新左翼的回复因袭着福柯的愚蠢。)
顺便说一下我的一个看法,基于国情,诸如“左派”/“右派”最好在翻译时代之以“左翼”/“右翼”
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附议,“学术假”的译法的确有些雷人
leave
n.
Permission to do something. See Synonyms at permission.
Abbr. lv. Official permission to be absent from work or duty, as that granted to military or corporate personnel. The period of time granted by such permission. Also called leave of absence. 好像应该类似 停薪留职 吧。 引用第18楼josephe于2009-03-27 21:42发表的 :
好像应该类似 停薪留职 吧。
虽不中亦不远。sabbatical leave恰恰就是带薪假期。比如一个教授要集中时间写一本专著,或者去外地讲学,通常就要apply for a leave。陆兴华在国外学校呆了这么多年,这些问题不会弄错。
http://www.ed.psu.edu/educ/for-current-faculty-and-staff/sabbatical-leave
这个网站是一个美国学校对这种“学术假”的定义:
The purpose of a sabbatical leave is "to provide a period of time for study of research, the object of which is to enable recipients to increase their usefulness in their work with the University. A leave with pay (sabbatical) is a privilege which may be granted to an individual who has demonstrated, preferably by published or otherwise recognized work, substantial ability in scholarship, research and training, or other creative work."
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