Words, strutting around ...

Benjamin's »Origin of the German Mourning Play«, we are told, is »esoteric«. It is not. The thing Benjamin does is quite common among German authors between 1890 and 1930. With his writing he follows two ideals, not respecting academic divisions of fields like »Philosophy« or »Literature«: these ideals are beauty and truth. He does so because, in ancient Greece as well as in the modern world, someone taught that expression of thought has to be carefully considered, and that a thinker and writer should pay attention to the words he chooses. The words do not transport, as psychologists say, a meaning, so that you may choose one or the other synonym without consequence – words are the meaning, or at least part of it. Do not ignore the sound and the images they give.

When Benjamin writes das Wort stolziert, we can see »the word strutting around«: walking stiffly and arrogantly, apparently proud of itself. The entire sentence: 

Hier stolziert das Wort, die Silbe und der Laut, emanzipiert von jeder hergebrachten Sinnverbindung, als Ding, das allegorisch ausgebeutet werden darf. 

The English translation gives: 

Here the »word, syllable, and sound are emancipated from any context of traditional meaning and are flaunted as objects which can be exploited for allegorical purposes«. 

No strutting, no pride. And on it goes:

»The language of the baroque is constantly convulsed by rebellion by the part of the elements which make it up«. (p. 207)

»Convulsed«? No. Benjamin had written: 

Die Sprache des Barock ist allezeit erschüttert von Rebellionen ihrer Elemente.

»Shaken« may be a good translation ... shaken as we are by earthquakes, shaken: broken things are on the floor, chaotic pieces, a mess. No »convulsions«. The translator obviously just looked up erschüttern in a dictionary and thought the direct translation of the word would be okay. He did not see the picture.  

Headquarters of the army of concepts?

One episode of the famous American cartoon »Southpark« is entitled »The Stick of Truth«. In German, this becomes Stab, Stab der Wahrheit. Of course Benjamin, when in his unfortunate »Origin of the German Mourning Play« he writes about a Stab von Begriffen, he does not mean a »stick of concepts«, which could also be nice and efficient as a weapon. He makes use of the second meaning of Stab: the commanding group of officers in an army. This makes the reader rightly think of conceptual war, underlined by the verb dienen: »which serves to the representation«.

The English translation (John Osborne, 2003) proposes »a set of concepts which assist«: which is both: correct as a translation and totally wrong.

If we read on, we will encounter sentences as

»If ideas do not incorporate phenomena, and if they do not become functions of the law of phenomena, the "hypothesis", then ...«

But Benjamin does not say »phenomena become …« –

Wenn sie die Phänomene weder durch Einverleibung in sich enthalten, noch sich in Funktionen, in das Gesetz der Phänomene, in die »Hypothesis« verflüchtigen, so …

Benjamin says: verflüchtigen sich, they »evaporate«, vanish into the hypothesis, like perfumes do into the air, becoming barely perceptible.

Today we are used to consider philosophy part of the university teaching. But the period when great philosophers were also university professors has been very short, it starts with Wolff (1706) and ends with Hegel (1831) – not very much compared to nearly 3000 years of philosophical activities. Do not ask university lecturers if you need the translation of thoughts, ask poets.

Allegorical Tractatus

In his Tractatus, Wittgenstein makes use of several terms he takes from classical philosophy: not only “Welt”, but also “Substanz” (which is, as he says, independent from the world!). It may seem he is only playing with high brow concepts of the Geistesgeschichte. In this way also his thoughts about God or “a god” could be read. But maybe the contrary is true.

Just have a look at:

4.012 Offenbar ist, dass wir einen Satz von der Form „aRb“ als Bild empfinden. Hier ist das Zeichen offenbar ein Gleichnis des Bezeichneten.

“Gleichnis” is a word that in German usually only Christ would use – or whoever thinks to speak for him. Jesus, young Christians learn, “spricht in Gleichnissen” – He speaks in parables, He allegorizes, His heirs pontificate. To talk in parables, we may add, is not to be considered the clearest of all possible manners of expressing yourself.

To translate it as “likeness”, as Pears and Ogden do, may give a wrong idea.

Ogden: “Here the sign is obviously a likeness of the signified.”

Well, “obviously”, offensichtlich, but offenbar: here this must mean “apparently”. There is nothing obvious in what Wittgenstein says. For Christians, in addition, this offenbar is linked to the Offenbarung, revelation.

Why not translate as follows:

"It is apparent (“obvious” in the sense of revealed!) that we sense a sentence of the form “aRb” as a picture. Here the sign apparently is a parable (allegory) of the signified."

What if the Tractatus said: all our signifying and indicating “facts” is very mysterious? Something near religion?

The Unding

5.5421 Dies zeigt auch, dass die Seele—das Subjekt etc.—wie sie in der heutigen oberflächlichen Psychologie aufgefasst wird, ein Unding ist.

This strange being, the Unding, is translated as… well, our logicians see the negation inside (literally Unding is a Nonthing) and extricate it:

Ogden: This shows that there is no such thing as the soul

Pears: This shows too that there is no such thing as the soul

At least Pears does not forget the auch (too). But both translators ignore that, in German, Das ist ein Unding! is just an idiomatic expression. Unding here means an "absurd thing". It may be a law, a rule, an order: it is judged as being against nature, against morals, against reason. And yes, according to the Grimms, Unding may also mean "ghost", "monster", "phantom". As it seems, Wittgenstein is getting polemic here.

For our purposes it would be sufficient to translate Unding as "absurdity".

Wittgenstein's Urbild

In his Tractatus, Wittgenstein talks about Urbilder:

5.522
Das Eigentümliche der Allgemeinheitsbezeichnung ist erstens, dass sie auf ein logisches Urbild hinweist, und zweitens, dass sie Konstante hervorhebt.


The English translation of Urbild, according to both Ogden and Pears, should be "prototype". Max Black proposes "proto-picture", and even this might be misleading.

Ur corresponds to "proto" only if we call the jungle "protoforest" (Urwald), our origin "proto-origin" (Ursprung) and our first (or last) principle "protoprinciple" (Urprinzip). We would rather not. The prefix Ur- sometimes indicates something arcaic (Urzeit) and sometimes something very basic (Urgrund) – the English "prototype", however, is usually applied to cars instead: it is something that still has to be revised and improved.

Kant uses Urbild in order to translate the Platonic "idea". Which, looking back at the Tractatus, could be interesting indeed.

Achim Seiffarth

Die Sprache Max Webers

Eine soziologische Untersuchung

http://www.tectum-verlag.de/die-sprache-max-webers.html

ISBN 978-3-8288-3747-8
547 Seiten, Paperback
Tectum Verlag 2016

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