Translation and the Nature of Philosophy: A New Theory of Words Book

This work explores the fundamental interrelation of philosophy and translation. By studying the conceptions of translation in the works of Plato, Seneca, Heidegger, Davidson, Walter Benjamin and Freud, Andrew Benjamin reveals the interplay between the two disciplines not only in their relationship to language but at a deeper, cognitive level. In the post-structuralist presence, the concept of a constant yet illusive "true" meaning has lost its intellectual authority, while still remaining a problem. The fact of translation seems to defy the notion that meaning is reducible to its component words. Yet to say that the truth of the matter is more than the sum of its parts is to challenge the very foundations of what it is to communicate, to understand and to know. In this study, Andrew Benjamin sets out just such a new theory of words.Read More