Zweckrational?

In our wonderful German language, we may spontaneously form compounds of all kinds. We may walk around traumverloren or, for philosophers, even better: gedankenverloren. For the English translation you must choose between “absentmindedly” (but absent where? In dreams or in thoughts?) or “lost in dreams”, “lost in thoughts”.

Our actions may be zweckrational, as Weber believed: "rational regarding a purpose", you will have to translate. The noun, then, would be Zweckrationalität: rationality of purpose. Some suggest “instrumental rationality” – but this would presuppose critical thoughts expressed by Lukàcs and the Franfurt School after Weber's death: it's a bad translation.

In Weber's eyes, or words, this rationality of purpose was the dominating kind of rationality in today's Western world. He thought even the omnipresent bureaucracy could be described as zweckrational. Today we don't believe this to be true. To be zweckrational you need to be able to choose freely between the means you can employ in order to achieve your purpose. Once you have a bureaucratic organization with its directorates and departments and offices, you cannot do this; rather, you have to choose between the options provided by your organization. Well, it took us 40 years before Niklas Luhmann pointed out Weber's faulty re-use of a word applying to the behavior of individuals for organizations.

Maybe in English this would not have happened? Is Zweckrationalität “rationality of purpose” - or "of purposes”? One or many? Would this expression - ambiguous and cumbersome - have become the central metaphor of certain sociological and philosophical schools for describing modern society? In any case, we could be considered sprachverloren.

This is Europe

When I was a boy, the US was in our films and in our dreams: Kennedy, Muhammed Ali, Lassie, a small step for a man … oh, how long is the list of American gods! We even ate American food – which is, to say the least, crazy.

But one thing we were told by our teachers, would forever limit American supremacy. “They are superficial!“ And we, that is: we Europeans, we were always ready to consider stacks of books, metaphysical abysses in every question of our lives.

If this is a correct opposition, or at least was one before things like “Bologna“ crushed our universities, then it is clear why the translators of the famous “System-Fragment”, written by Hegel and/or by Schelling and/or by Hölderlin ... or most probably by all the three of them, why in its American translation they write about being »clever«:

»One cannot be clever in anything, one cannot even reason cleverly in history – without aesthetic sense.« (philosophyproject.org)

Quite obscure, so far. »Aesthetic sense« and »cleverness« – what might be the connection?

»Clever« in German would be something like schlau, maybe schnell und schlau? In a text from our young idealists a word like this simply could not have appeared. Cleverness concerns something they regarded as meaningless everyday activities. They might have written about being reasonable (not in the practical sense!), about being rational, and they most definitely would not have protested against »thinking beautifully« – seeing as they proclaim the importance of »aesthetic sense«, but »clever«? Never.

Indeed they wrote:

Man kann in nichts geistreich sein, selbst über Geschichte kann man nicht geistreich raisonnieren – ohne ästhetischen Sinn.

This is not easy to translate. Nowadays geistreich is something near to what we consider British humour, say: »witty«. But if we take the word geistreich literally, we get nearer to what those invincible three philosophers may have meant: »rich/full of spirit« – »spirit« taken as the (more or less) human faculty of reasoning – reasoning »about«, not »in« history. And if they use raisonnieren please leave it like that in your translation: At that time, that was still French stuff and you could hear it.

German! British? French! Just do not forget that he is from Europe when you make Hegel (and/or …) speak American.