Abstract
One peculiar way of embarking on the study of a particular philosophy is to critically examine how it has been translated into other languages. In this essay I do not wish to enter into an exercise in translation theory: rather, by setting out from my concrete work as a translator, I will try to reconstruct certain aspects of the process of translating Husserl in Italy (which is, partly, also the history of his reception in this country), in order to determine what this can tell to us about Husserlian philosophy. I will proceed by key points, concentrating on some of the decisive moments of the translation and reception of Husserlian thought in Italy, with particular reference to two complementary aspects of this reception: the subject of history on the one hand, and the problem of logic on the other.
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Notes
- 1.
Paci, Enzo. 1961. Avvertenza. In: Husserl, Edmund. 2002. La crisi delle scienze europee e la fenomenologia trascendentale (trans: Filippini, E.). Milan: Il Saggiatore. 1. (All translations of Italian texts are my own).
- 2.
Ibid.
- 3.
The first Husserlian work translated into Italian was the first two volumes of the Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, translated in 1950 by Giulio Alliney (ed. Enrico Filippini) for Einaudi (Turin 1950). The translation of Philosophy as Rigorous Science (ed. Filippo Costa) followed in 1958 (Turin: Paravia).
- 4.
Paci, Avvertenza. In: Husserl, La crisi delle scienze europee e la fenomenologia trascendentale, 1.
- 5.
Ibid.
- 6.
Benjamin, Walter. 2000. The Task of the Translator. In: The Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti, 75–83. London: Routledge. 75.
- 7.
It is undoubtedly also for this reason that the 1961 Filippini translation has resisted revision to this day, as well as any updates in the light of the vast number of subsequent translations.
- 8.
Boella, Laura. 2007. Traduttori per caso. aut aut 334:7–20. Here 14.
- 9.
Trincia, Francesco Saverio. 2012. Fortuna dell’opera. In: Guida alla lettura della “Crisi delle scienze europee” di Husserl. 186–207. Rome-Bari: Laterza.
- 10.
Paci, Enzo (ed.). 1960. Omaggio a Husserl. Milan: il Saggiatore.
- 11.
Paci, Avvertenza. In: Husserl, La crisi delle scienze europee e la fenomenologia trascendentale, 2. Certain variations are present in the contributions offered in Omaggio a Husserl by the various authors involved: in particular, one can observe a tendency to make the problem of history emerge from a critical reflection on Husserlian logic, on account of how that logic has been structured since the first phase of Husserl’s thought. For a further consideration of this aspect, I take the liberty of referring to my essay: Buongiorno, Federica. 2011. Husserl in Italia (1955–1967). Il Cannocchiale 1:77–116.
- 12.
Paci, Enzo. 1960. Nota introduttiva. In: Omaggio a Husserl, 5.
- 13.
Paci, Enzo. 1968. Prefazione alla terza edizione italiana. In: Husserl, La crisi delle scienze europee e la fenomenologia trascendentale, 7.
- 14.
Ibid., 9.
- 15.
Trincia, Fortuna dell’opera. In: Guida alla lettura della “Crisi delle scienze europee” di Husserl. 186–207.
- 16.
Husserl, Edmund. 1968. Ricerche logiche, ed. G. Piana. Milan: il Saggiatore.
- 17.
I have dwelt on this subject, which is to say on the possibility of a more “continuist” reading of Husserlian thought in the light of the presence, already in the Logical Investigations, of a pre-categorial problem, in the re-elaboration of my doctoral thesis (Buongiorno, Federica. 2014. Logica delle forme sensibili. Sul precategoriale nel primo Husserl. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura). In particular, I have availed myself of the observations already made by important scholars of Husserl: Costa, Vincenzo. 1999. L’estetica trascendentale fenomenologica. Sensibilità e razionalità nella filosofia di Edmund Husserl. Milan: Vita e Pensiero; De Palma, Vittorio. 2003. Forma categoriale e struttura dell’esperienza. Paradigmi 21:159–165; Lohmar, Dieter. 1998. Erfahrung und kategoriales Denken. Hume, Kant und Husserl über vorprädikative Erfahrung und prädikative Erkenntnis. Dordrecht: Kluwer; Lanfredini, Roberta (ed.). 2006. A priori materiale. Uno studio fenomenologico. Milan: Guerini e Associati. The study of the monographs dedicated to Husserlian logic by certain Italian interpreters proved crucial; these interpreters contributed to the aforementioned “rebirth” of Husserlian studies in Italy, initiated by Enzo Paci, and they—in surprising advance of the times—have grasped and investigated, within Husserl’s logic, the “question of the precategorial,” with various allusions and nuances, and with particular reference to the Investigations and to Formal and Transcendental Logic, bringing to light the difficulties posed by this to Phenomenology as a whole (see Bosio, Franco. 1966. Fondazione della logica in Husserl, Milan: Lampugnani Nigri Editore; Melandri, Enzo. 1960. Logica e esperienza in Husserl. Bologna: il Mulino; Raggiunti, Renzo. 1967. Husserl. Dalla logica alla fenomenologia. Florence: Le Monnier; Sancipriano, Mario. 1962. Il logos di Husserl. Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo; Voltaggio, Franco. 1965. Fondamenti della logica di Husserl. Milan: Edizioni di Comunità).
- 18.
Piana, Giovanni. 1968. Introduzione. In: Husserl, Ricerche logiche, xi.
- 19.
Piana observes that “through the studies of logicians whose background—as in the case of Husserl himself—lies in arithmetical and geometrical studies rather than in German Romantic philosophy, the idea emerges of logic as a mathematical discipline (…). That this idea of the mathematicalness of logic ought to be connected to a critique of the psychologistic tendency was not immediately obvious (…).” Ibid., xiv. This is the reason for the Husserlian interest in Leibniz and, above all, for the logical doctrine of Bernard Bolzano in the Wissenschaftslehre of 1837—whose rediscovery, as is known, Husserl is explicitly credited with in the Entwurf einer “Vorrede” zu den “Logischen Untersuchungen” of 1913, published in 1939 in Tijdschrift voor Philosophie (1:106–133 and 2:319–333). Here 129, note.
- 20.
Piana, Introduzione. In: Husserl, Ricerche logiche, xviii.
- 21.
Suffice it to mention his words in the Preface to the Sixth Investigation (1920) and in the Entwurf of 1913.
- 22.
Piana, Introduzione. In: Husserl, Ricerche logiche, xxiii.
- 23.
Ibid.
- 24.
Paci, Enzo. 1966. Prefazione. In: Husserl, Edmund. 1966. Logica formale e trascendentale: saggio di critica della ragione logica (trans: Neri, G.D.). Rome-Bari: Laterza. (Republished in 2009, Udine: Mimesis). 9–10.
- 25.
Ibid., 10.
- 26.
Ibid.
- 27.
Husserl, Edmund. 1965. Esperienza e giudizio: ricerche sulla genealogia della logica (trans: Costa, F.). Introduction by E. Paci. Milan: Silva (republished in 2007, Milan: Bompiani).
- 28.
Paci, Prefazione. In: Husserl, Logica formale e trascendentale, 11.
- 29.
It is well known how strong the inclination was, already in Husserl’s time, to read the different “turns” of his thought in a markedly critical and discontinuist way: it suffices to recall, as I have already done, the misunderstandings to which the Fifth and, above all, the Sixth Logical Investigation were subjected by virtue—as Husserl himself complained—of their phenomenological character; or the “transcendental turn” of Ideas I in 1913, which was greeted with great disappointment by Husserl’s most direct pupils, who saw in this a betrayal of the programme presented in the Logical Investigations, or even a subjectivistic mystification of phenomenology.
- 30.
Husserl, Edmund. 2008. Introduction to Logic and Theory of Knowledge. Lectures 1906/07 (trans: Hill, C.O.). Dordrecht: Springer.
- 31.
Marini, A., Rizzoli, L. (ed.). 2000. Intervista a Klaus Held sulla traduzione di Husserl e Heidegger. Magazzino di filosofia 2:5–17. Here 7.
- 32.
I note in passing that the experience of translating a classic represented a very instructive test for me, as compared with translating a living author, totally unpublished in Italy, as was the case with my translation of the contemporary German-Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han. In this case, every translation choice has only itself as a point of reference and is therefore constantly decisive, because it creates a referential “canon” for the author in the language of the translation. In other words, this is a work involving very different difficulties and problems, which are almost “demiurgic,” and which—so to speak—create not only the translated work but, in some way, the author himself (within the context of reception). The image, consistency and referentiality of the author (especially if one is not dealing with a classic) arise—for the community of the Italian readers—through the translation, and so the “first” translation acquires an almost revelatory character.
- 33.
Husserl, Ricerche logiche, Chapter I, § 11 and 44.
- 34.
See Ferrarello, Susi. 2010. Edmund Husserl. Il pensiero etico e l’idea di scienza, Padua: Libreria Universitaria. 21, note 46. I recall incidentally that the translation of “technical discipline” links the Husserlian discourse, rather than to Kant, to the precedent of Franz Brentano and the reflection he conducted in Psicologia dal punto di vista empirico (Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint), where the term is translated by Liliana Albertazzi precisely with “technical discipline.”
- 35.
Husserl, Logica formale e trascendentale, 67.
- 36.
Husserl, Introduction to Logic and Theory of Knowledge, 69.
- 37.
Piana, Introduzione. In: Husserl, Ricerche logiche, xxiii.
- 38.
Husserl, Introduction to Logic and Theory of Knowledge, § 35d. 206ff.
- 39.
Paci, Prefazione. In: Husserl, Logica formale e trascendentale, 10.
- 40.
Cristin, Renato. 2009. Presentazione. In: Husserl, Edmund. Meditazioni cartesiane. Con l’aggiunta dei discorsi parigini. Milan: Bompiani. (First edition: 1960). xiv. (Cristin quotes Husserl from 140ff. of the text). In reality, this theme is central above all to the VI Cartesian Meditation, which Eugen Fink developed in his Habilitation thesis in the footsteps of—and in perfect agreement with—Husserl (whose intention was to include it in the German edition of the Meditations). See Fink, Eugen. 1988. VI. Cartesianische Meditation. Teil I: Die Idee einer transzendentalen Methodenlehre; Teil II: Ergänzungsband, ed. H. Ebeling, G. van Kerckhoven. Dordrecht: M. Nijhoff; Italian translation (2009): Sesta meditazione cartesiana. L’idea di una dottrina trascendentale del metodo. Parte I, ed. A. Marini. Milan: Franco Angeli.
- 41.
R. Cristin, Presentazione. In: Husserl, Meditazioni cartesiane, xiv.
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Buongiorno, F. (2020). Husserl’s Phenomenology Through His Italian Translations. In: Buongiorno, F., Costa, V., Lanfredini, R. (eds) Phenomenology in Italy. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 106. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25397-4_1
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