Metaphysical translation as a rationale for a new cultural program, or the drama of misspeak embodiment

Normative in translation studies [Шелестюк, Гриценко 2016] and accepted as necessary as a dialectical framework for description [Paloposki, Oittinen 2000], the distinction between foreignisation and domestication translation does not quite work if three conditions are simultaneously observed, which are not considered in the L. Venuti’s classical model [Venuti 2017], but correspond to those outlined by N. Avtonomova. Avtonomova herself speaks only of semantic and not functional untranslability: 1) translation is not performed as a professional task of the translator, but as one of the tasks of the intellectual who asserts his or her program, 2) translation appears not within a well-established system of literary production, but within an individual project that must create its modes of production and perception, 3) translation works simultaneously as familiarity with the original, which is understood as a certain energy of culture, and as the making in the local culture of a certain energy of the translated text, so that the translated text should lead the culture out of the crisis and postulate new foundations for it. Since no suitable term has been found in the translation research, we propose to call such translation metaphysical, meaning that it redefines the very foundations of culture, pretending to make it more intellectual [Автономова 2016].

The study of this type of translation is hampered by the fact that, for eras remote to us, it is difficult to assess the contribution of precisely each translation decision to the intellectual content of the era, and so the description of the situation will long prevail over the analysis of the micro-level. Already for Renaissance translations, though, metaphysical principles can be established. For example, when J. Manetti, editing the translation of the Bible by St. Jerome, replaces abstinentia (abstinence) with continentia (restraint) [den Haan 2016, 483 485], the ethics of his teacher L. Valla, who argued with the Aristotelian golden mean in the name of a new aristocratic ethics of improvisation, and translation willy-nilly instills this change in readers no worse than Valla’s theo-

retical constructions. Or, when M. Ficino didn’t only translate Greek schema as figura but also added the word to translations [Vescovini 1996], then this is precisely what his reform of Platonism is best seen in, understood no longer as the passive contemplation of ideas and their imprints in things, but the reading of figures (constellations or rhetorical figures) as the basis for civil active life, and again the small change in translation affects the cultural program itself.

Therefore, the metaphysical translation can be compared with the Freudian slip [Лапланш, Понталис 1996, 239], which gives out the desires of the unconscious and at the same time structures the perception of speech as the perception of the unconscious. Of course, the reader(s) of a translation do not check it against the original but always feel what has become the dominant discourse at the moment, what strangeness is not of an external stylistic plan, but in the very core of the argumentation, even better to say, the underlying assumptions of the authoritative text itself, and can no longer perceive the content of the authoritative text apart from this dominant. In this sense, the discovery of metaphysical translation may well be compared to the discovery of the unconscious.

To substantiate the reality of metaphysical translation, we chose a period in the development of Russian culture, when philosophical interest determined programs that re-interpreted both local and world culture. We believe that this situation will help to understand how metaphysical translation is not only introduced into culture, but also functions in it further, determining its perspectives and parameters. Thus, we follow the well-known premises adopted, for example, in Russian semiotics, which considered the philosophically intense phenomena of the Russian culture (from the Old Russian icon, sainthood and aristocratic ethics to the poetics of urban spaces) as a model for understanding general patterns of culture, such as the limits of binary oppositions in it or sharp breaks and explosive developments.

The article by Solov’yev “The Life Drama of Plato” (1898), written as a necessary self-report during the preparation of the Russian “Complete Works of Plato”, should be recognized as the manifesto of metaphysical translation. Solov’yev argued that the Greeks had created a special sense of time: “To the colonial Greeks the conventionality of the paternal law was revealed in space, to the Athenians it was in time” [Соловьёв 1991, 595]. In other words, in the colonies there was something to compare tradition with, while in the metropolis the very participation of citizens in political life meant that time was constantly changing, not just making some new decisions, but changing something hourly. Critical thought is born not as an encroachment on former sanctities, but as the impossibility to treat reverently that which one constructs oneself: “Law, as the product of the unstable will, opinion, and whim of men, is no more worthy of worship than the material product of human hands” [Соловьёв 1991, 595] Thus, the initial disposition of culture as an area of admitted impossibility of some gesture, an area of some gaping, also determined Solov’yev’s further conversation about a certain communicative failure that defines an essential feature of Platonism as such, some slip or error in behavior that determined the development of Platonism, at any rate, as a social project. We can already note such a characteristic of metaphysical translation as the need for the translator to reflect on the far-reaching effects of slips or errors, although the translator can reduce this effect only to the social or practical.

Commenting on the “Phaedo” dialogue and developing in this commentary one of the key thoughts of the article, that the doctrine of ideas arose from Plato’s personal disappointment in the world that killed Socrates, while Plato’s continued acceptance of the universality of all moral requirements of Socrates, understood thereby as some templates, provable solely visually rather than from social experience, Solov’yev noted that the courage of Socrates in the face of death, counting on a meeting with sages in the afterlife, had been illegally attributed by Plato to Socrates as “a trait of naive heartlessness and indelicacy” [Соловьёв 1991, 592]; for the living are then humiliated. If Plato had been at this farewell conversation, he would have, “out of vanity alone, would have avoided putting such an unceremonious consolation into Socrates’ mouth” [Соловьёв 1991, 592]. It is as if Solov’yev forgets both literary conventions and the psychological unlikelihood of such a humiliation: the disciples clearly grieved for Socrates more than they could have resented him. Where does this conviction by Solov’yev of the provocative behavior of Plato’s Socrates come from, a behavior fictionalized both carelessly and arbitrarily, but which determined the further paths of culture, in which the idealization of the principles of being took precedence over their adaptation to the communicative situation?

For his project, Solov’yev translated Plato’s dialogue “Protagoras” [Платон 1903, 374-393], and the accuracy of the translation did not yield to the brilliance and humor, which overshadowed the interpretation of the text already in the interpretation of the very composition of ancient intellectual culture: Solov’yev disputed the belonging of the dialogue to Plato, considering it an expression of another line of Socratic teachings, the hedonism of the Cynics. One of the nodes of the dialogue is the dispute over how to understand the poet Simonides’ words against Pittacus’ maxim “It is hard to be good”. Protagoras catches the poet at a contradiction, for the poet himself claimed that virtue is hard. Prodicus’ analysis of the distinction between the words “to be” and “become”, thus reducing the distinction of positions to a distinction of words, is insufficient: even after this distinction, we cannot explain what the hard means (requires effort, impossible, unpleasant...) without referring to context, and neither poetry nor sophistry can provide a definitive context.

Socrates takes his favorite step: he shifts the conversation from observing things to the norms of professionalization: one can be good only in a profession, not just so, hence “hard” can be unambiguously interpreted even in the absence of contexts. But this is where Solov’yev allows for a number of interesting shifts in translation. First, Socrates’ semantic argument is that the word “truly” should refer to action, not to an object, although, although we would say that grammar allows for a relation to an object as well. But for Socrates of this dialogue, philosophy is more important than grammar, although he deduces philosophy as “laconics”, the ability to conduct a discussion with a minimum of statement contexts, and he observes that laconism does not involve distinguish-

ing between varieties, true or not true good, it is contrary to the precision and certainty of discussion according to laconian customs. Literally Socrates says that “<Ш/ илерратоу Set Oetvat ev тф аоцап то акабсюд” [Платон 1903, 390], which Solov’yev translates: “We must suppose that in the song the word ‘verily’ is rearranged”, which seems to be true, but the Russian “suppose” (polagaf) is clearly too pale a word. For Russian public “suppose” does not mean “assert’ (utverzhdaf) as something indisputable, as once and for all resolved, which is what the Laconic speech style seeks, but only to draw attention to some aspect of reasoning.

Socrates then draws a distinction between “being good” and “becoming good” on behalf of Simonides, who in response to Pittacus’ paradoxical thesis puts forward his own even more paradoxical thesis: “to 5’ eon yEVEoOat pev х^елбу, Sovarov 5s, soOkov, epevat 5e dSovarov” [Платон 1903, 391]. Socrates, having attributed the hyperbat to Simonides, now introduces his own hyperbat, the word “Sovarov”: although the grammatical structure is unambiguous, “hard but possible”. After all, the point of Socrates’ reasoning is not that one can become good, which would in no way refute Pitt’s position, but that possibility cannot be the basis for action if there are knowingly impossible actions. Possibility, as it were, begins to refer to the whole situation in which one becomes someone or something, but precisely for this reason it does not refer to the situation in which one remains someone, where one must already speak of validity or invalidity. In other words, Socrates here refutes sophistry under the guise of fighting against laconism as brevity.

Solov’yev translates “in fact it is hard to become such, although it is possible, but to be good is impossible”. He introduces what is missing in the original “in fact” to emphasize what area of issues Socrates is discussing, and relates the reality or invalidity of being to the temporal order: having correctly sensed the inner strength of Socrates’ argument, he puts an imprecise word, more precisely, in an imprecise place that leads to far-reaching consequences.

Socrates reasons that “ел! лкеютоу 5Ё Kai dptoToi simv oik dv oi 0eo1 cpikcomv” [Платон 1903, 393], which cannot be called anyone best. Solov’yev suggests that “ел! лаНстоу” be understood as “the longest in time” reducing the realization of the aristocratic ideal of the favorites of the gods to a temporal order that will ultimately reveal whether the realization of such an ideal has proved valid or invalid, without reducing this to a question of logical possibilities, which is given over to sophistic manipulation in the dialogue. In fact, Solov’yev willy-nilly speaks here of the conditions of deification, thereby introducing into the dialogue the problems that interested him most of all, and his translation acts as an energy that subordinates even the gods to this order of translation reasoning.

Of course, Solov’yev did not consider this dialogue as belonging to Plato, but as a result he was all the more interested in those mechanisms which reveal its authenticity or non-authenticity not by the external signs of the text’s criticism, but by the internal principles of content, and willy-nilly, focusing on them, launched other mechanisms of thought. Such a desire to find a term of deification was also evident in the later translations of the Russian idealist philosophers. Thus, Florenskiy [Флоренский 1907, 3] translated the liturgical prayer by Simeon the New Theologian, from the Latin version, and also depicted deification as part of the temporal order of experience: “quique in horas totus transmoveris” was translated “though thou hourly move all about”. Although such a translation cannot be called grammatically erroneous, it turns out that it is only possible to describe the work of the Spirit by nominating certain temporal orders, although clearly in the original prayer ecstatic rapture delight prevailed over all description.

The influence of such thought on orders led Florenskiy even to some errors of translation, for example, “nomen celebratissimum”, the name most solemn, was translated “the name <...> most frequently encountered” (Florensky confused with “creberrimum”). Also “above anyone’s trust” (“ad quem aspirare nullus potest”, “on whom no one can trust”) was translated “to whom no one has access”. This exposes the premise of Solov’yev’s doctrine of deification and the connection between his reasoning about Socrates’ farewell conversation and the translation about the favorites of the gods. For Solov’yev, abstract idealism emerged from Socrates’ farewell, whereas Florenskiy makes it precisely inaccessibility, which is no longer linked to trusts and hopes, a certain mode of expectation and tact, the basis of orders of deification, turning the question of tact into a question of the temporal or timeless conditions of any tact.

Likewise, the appeal to the Holy Spirit “who does not despise anyone of all, who does not fear anyone” looks in Florenskiy’s translation as a dispute with Solov’yev’s Socrates, who was not afraid of anyone, but could not help despising at least partly his disciples, although the original refers not to contempt but to rejection: “qui ex omnibus aversaris neminem, revereris neminem”, “You will not alienate (push) anyone from yourself, and you will not be embarrassed by anyone” [Флоренский 1907, 4], like Plato in the original “Phaedo”, it is important not that Socrates is not afraid of death, but that he is not embarrassed by it, not confused, so he talks about everything without embarrassment. Also, the translation “cui requiescendi locus nusquam est” as “when there is no resting place for you anywhere” is formally grammatically correct, but it changes the perspective of the statement: while for Simeon the New Theologian it was important that the all-presence of God differ from the temporal orders we are used to, for Florenskiy it is essential that this all-presence is so dynamic that it becomes the facticity of the grace order as an order of constant motion. Finally, when Florenskiy translates “Sed etiam modo intus me constitutum, semper im-mobilem” as “through my being in me perfectly constituted, always immovable”, this is a dark translation, but one that summarizes what Solov’yev extracted from the “Protagoras”: only by the good pleasure of the gods do humans become better, and the gods courteously create a new temporal order, although Socrates in the original clearly wanted to challenge any sophistic orders of argumentation, including temporal orders.

Florenskiy’s translation forms a whole with his sermon in his booklet “Joy for All Ages” (“Radost’ na veki”). In this sermon, Florenskiy says that the 48

Cherub, “many-voiced as conscience” [Флоренский 1907, 8] is precisely what makes a person embarrassed, makes one feel ashamed. Florenskiy understood the demand of the liturgical “Cherubic Song” to set aside worldly cares, not as a call, but as an effect of reality: in the liturgy all indeed find themselves seen by the angels, captured by their vision, and therefore no longer belonging to the temporal order of the material world. Whatever the sources and purposes of such reasoning, the idealization of the situation as occurring within time, rather than within social relations, turns out to be determinative of the very order of description, which affects the further translations made by Russian idealists as well. Thus, Losev translated “not-eyed” as “minds captivated by eyes” in the translation of the “Areopagitica”, just meaning not the possibility of deification, but already its factuality [Лосев 1997, 458].

Florenskiy points to the example of Zacchaeus, who decided to see Jesus, but was seen by him. Florenskiy emphasizes that the people were indignant, but Zacchaeus did not think about what was possible for him, but only that he would begin to see for real. Zacchaeus reveals the factuality of deification, which is what allows Florenskiy to describe deification as a pure apotheosis of light, as that those who have seen the cherubim “from within are blindingly luminous”, even if not yet cleansed of their sins. Similarly, in his translation, Losev calls the bright light “more than effulgent”, referring to its incomprehensibility as a necessary condition for its idealization.

The question of orders as capable of subordinating any reasoning, and not deduced from reasoning, only outlined by Solov’yev in the translation of Protagoras, comes to the fore in Losev’s work. Again, we are not talking about the influence of one translation on another, but only about the generality of those slips that determine the content of the text. The author of the “Areopagiti-cus” in Losev’s translation says “direct us to a more than unprovable and more than radiant and higher order of mysterious revelations”, then in his translation “the absolute and unchanging secrets of theology are revealed in the luminous darkness of silence and its innermost science” [Лосев 1997, 458]. In the original there is neither “order”, nor “revelations”, nor the fact that secrets are “revealed”: it simply says “to <...> the summit <...> of mysterious words” (“ел! Tijv tcdv циопкшу koyicov <...> Kopvcpf|v”), and not “unprovable”, but “super-unknowable” in the original (“илерауугоотоу”), just as secrets are simply “hidden” (“eyKSKakvptai”), and the “darkness of silence and its secret science” translated original “крисрюциотои myfjg” (gloom of the hidden-mystery), where no science exactly exists. In all these additions, there was clearly a desire to introduce a regulatory order, which is not at all implied by the almost hymn text of the “Areopagitica”, but again necessary where a once-existing idealization must be proved, which turns out to be the order of the phenomenon, not the order of the proof.

So, we can assert that besides the obvious influences on Russian philosophical thought during its formation of different cognitive programs, from ancient idealism to phenomenology, there was also the influence of translation as a kind of slip, as the impossibility of not pointing to some order, if philosophy claims to do more than solve questions of possibility and reality, but still wants to remain a philosophy. Translation in this slip-structure does not adapt the achievements of thought of another time to the needs of the present, nor does it enrich the resources of philosophical argumentation, but it itself, unnoticed by its doer and reader, becomes a resource for problematizing the philosophical task itself, just as psychoanalysis problematized both the psyche itself and talk about it.