翻译与理解——兼论“一‘是’到底”

Translation and Understanding——With a View on “the Thorough Understanding of Being in the Sense of Copula”

在胡塞尔的中译著作中,与Sein相关有一些非常明显的翻译问题,比如将“was es ist”译为“它如何存在”和“它是什么”,将“es ist……”译为“存在着……”;将相互对应的名词“Sein”和动词“ist”译为“存在”和“是”。它们要么对相同的译文采用完全不同的翻译,要么使系词结构丧失殆尽,要么消除了动词和名词的对应性,使它们变成没有联系的词。这样的翻译显然是不对的。究其原因,主要在于有一个先入为主的“存在”概念,因而没有坚持在系词的意义上理解“ist”,对名词与动词、以及与各种不同变形的对应性缺乏清晰而足够的认识,无法将系词的理解贯彻始终。“是什么”乃是表达认识的基本方式,与语言相关,与逻辑相关,因此是与认识相关讨论中最重要的概念。应该在系词的意义上来理解和翻译,并且应该将这样的理解贯彻始终。

There are some obvious mistakes in the Chinese translation of Husserl's works, such as translating “was es ist” into “how it exists” and “what it is”, and translating “es ist…” into “exists…”, while translating the corresponding noun “Sein” and verb “ist” into “existence” and “ is”. The translator translated the same word with totally different expressions, or made the copulative structure thoroughly disappear, or eliminated the correspondence between noun and verb of the word “being”. The reason of all these mistakes was the presupposed concept of “ existence”( cunzai in Chinese), which made one fail to keep the understanding of “ist” in the sense of copula, in holding a clear and full view of the correspondence among the noun, verb and various grammatical forms of the word being, therefore made one fail to keep the understanding of being in the sense of copula. “What it is”, the basic way in which one expresses one's ideas, has links with language, and with logic as well, being the most important concept in the discussion of knowledge in philosophy. The word “being” should be understood and translated mainly in the sense of copula. And this point of view should be practiced throughout in the research of Western philosophy.