When Hegel erkläres - what Philosophers do

Philosophers deal with truth. Linguistically, we may aspect what Searle calls representative speech acts from them. They assert, they affirm, they conclude, they explain. When Hegel opens his enchanting preface to the Phenomenology with "Eine Erklärung, wie sie einer Schrift in einer Vorrede nach der Gewohnheit vorausgeschickt wird", the English translator (Pinkard) writes: "to begin, as writers usually do in a preface, by explaining", or (A.V. Miller): "It is customary to preface a work with an explanation" .

What kind of explanation? "über den Zweck, den der Verfasser sich in ihr vorgesetzt": "of the author's aim" ("sich vorsetzen" means: put in front of himself, like a glass), and about tendencies and relations to other thinkers. Indeed, the preface could contain an explanation. Certainly not a causal derivation of the theoretical work. Maybe a conceptually clear exposition of the author's point of view? But that would be the text in itself, not the preface. Explanation? If we take a look at the German word "Erklärung", we immediately see that it derives from "klar", Latin "clarus, a" (therefore Cicero, in his admirable Italian translation, chooses "chiarimento", wrongly).

The English correspondent would be "to declare". In fact, the German "erklären" can also be used in this sense: "to declare war": "Krieg erklären".

Hegel writes: "Erklärung über den Zweck", not "des Zwecks". "A declaration of the author's aim", that is what he is talking about.  

Later on, Hegel asserts: "Die Forderung von dergleichen Erklärungen sowie die Befriedigungen derselben gelten leicht dafür, das Wesentliche zu betreiben": "The demand for such explanations, as also the attempts to satisfy this demand, very easily pass for the essential business philosophy has to undertake". Again, these are "Erklärungen" of "aims and results", which in a preface necessarily are not developed through the movement of thought, as Hegel critically remarks: these are declarations. 

In his preface, Hegel is talking about the problem of declaring aims and results. Philosophers explain, that is sure, but they declare as well. What is the difference? An explanation remains true and clear independently of the author. A declaration instead does only make sense if we see the subject behind: somebody declares something, and indeed we continue treating philosophical thought as linked to historical persons, whatever the constant reference to something like "Hegel" or "Kant" may mean.

Hegel's “Phenomenology”: The Beauty of it

On the Web we can find at least two different translations of Hegel's Phenomenology, one published by marxists.org, the other by Professor Terry Pinkard.¹ How to choose between them?

The Marxist version begins:

In the case of a philosophical work it seems not only superfluous, but, in view of the nature of philosophy, even inappropriate and misleading to begin, as writers usually do in a preface, by explaining the end the author had in mind, the circumstances which gave rise to the work, and the relation in which the writer takes it to stand to other treatises on the same subject, written by his predecessors or his contemporaries.

A plain sentence. The writer introduces a declaration of what he believes to be “inappropriate” and “misleading”. But why does he use so many words? Why this totally superfluous “written by his predecessors or his contemporaries” at the end? Was Hegel redundant? No, he simply put it the other way round, and the translator didn't respect the text. It is, as Pinkard translates:

In the preface to a philosophical work, it is customary for the author to give an explanation – namely, an explanation of his purpose in writing the book, his motivations behind it, and the relations it bears to other previous or contemporary treatments of the same topics – but for a philosophical work, this seems not only superfluous but in light of the nature of the subject matter, even inappropriate and counterproductive.

The judgement “inappropriate” arrives at the end, after a very long parenthesis that had two functions: to create suspense and to make clear the pedantry and ridiculousness of the other position. The “Phenomenology” is theater.

Pinkard is trying to do justice to Hegel's text. Add to this the mistakes in the “Marxist” translation: “substantiell” as “psychical” and its title: “Philosophy of Mind”'; it's true that “Geist” may be both, spirit and mind. But how to explain the book's closing verses “Out of the chalice of this realm of spirits / Foams forth to him his infinity” if we eliminate the ambiguity of “Geist” as spirit/ghost?

Anyway, it's not with a good translation that you get really near to Hegel. The young philosopher is still under the influence of Hölderlin, the poet, and Schelling, the elegant writer. The “Phenomenology”, at times, is poetry.

“The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and one might say that the former is refuted by the latter”.

Hegel is talking about blossoms, about flowers. In German the whole sentence sounds:

“Die Knospe verschwindet in dem Hervorbrechen der Blüte, und man könnte

sagen, dass jene von dieser widerlegt wird”.

You should read it aloud in order to get the sound*. And lyrically Hegel continues. You wouldn't have guessed reading Pinkard's translation:

“Likewise, by virtue of the fruit, the blossom itself may be declared to be a false existence of the plant, since the fruit emerges as the blossom’s truth as it comes to replace the blossom itself.”

Why “existence”? It's not “Existenz”, derived from Latin, but “Dasein”, Being:

linked to a Germanic root, more elementary. What about “a false being of the plant”? Why “by virtue of”? In German, it's “through” (just listen: “durch”/ “Frucht”, “ur” and “ru”):

“ebenso wird durch die Frucht die Blüte für ein falsches Dasein der Pflanze erklärt, und als ihre Wahrheit tritt jene an die Stelle von dieser”.

Hegel's text avoids all elegant expressions and nearly all words with Latin origin. As the translator Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt remarked, every single word in the preface of the “Phenomenology” can be understood by a child of six. It's elementary, and being it is part of Hegel's thesis. So, when we read in Pinkard's translation a word like “cognizance”, we immediately know this must be wrong. “Erkenntnis” is simply “knowledge”. Just trust Hegel: he would never use an ugly or even just 'technical' expression. This is the beauty of his dramatical narration of the story of our spirit.

*Sound

The noun “Knospe” starts with the consonant “k”, pronounced in the back of the throat, and ends with a p on your lips: it is perfectly imitating the process of growth and explosion of a flower. “Blüte” is remarkable because of the long “ü” – remember German is usually preferring low profile vowels like “e”, “Hervorbrechen” is concentrating in one word the breaking through of the blossom, while in English you have the sad subordinate clause “when .. breaking through”.

Marxist: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/ph/phprefac.htm Terry Pinkard: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21288399/Phenomenology%20translation%20English%20German.pdf. I do not intent to criticize the great work Prof. Pinkard has done. I only want to evidence the difficulty of translating philosophical texts.