manducci (asker) Sep 18, 2009:

As the text refers frequently to Berlin's contrasting characteristics - of a city constantly being demolished and rebuilt, of a city that embraces the modern but also clings to the past and former glories - I think 'dialectic' is important here.

James (Jim) Davis Sep 13, 2009:

Art texts I once showed a text I had to translate, written by an established art critic, to a reputable art restorer, to her son an undergraduate studying letters and to various other people in the art world. It was so difficult, abstruse, badly written or whatever you want to call it, that they refused to read any further and three or four lines. Hence the famous phrase "Oh he's brilliant, I don't understand a word of it".
What about "this word "dialettica" has entered the language so that it is commonly used in a general broad sense, rather than in the technical philosophical sense, so if you use it in English, all you get is the narrow technical sense,", or put simply "dialectic" is not synonymous with "dialettica" because of the difference in (frequency of) useage.

claudiocambon Sep 12, 2009:

the audience is up to it If this is from an exhibition catalog, I think the audience is up to the term "dialectic;" as we all know artspeak can be far more abstruse, technical, and obscure (and I say that not just because I am also an artist who talk philosophy classes in college!) :-)

James (Jim) Davis Sep 12, 2009:

"As a matter of principle, I think that if the concept exists, and can be translated, it should be translated." Generally speaking I would probably agree, but perfect translation is impossible and you need to take into account the purpose of the translation. You might be able to safely gloss over "ammissione al passivo" in a detective novel, if it is not crucial to the plot. So faced with the impossibility of a perfect translation (without using lengthy footnotes), I feel it is far better to compromise with good acceptable, readable and understandable English which while it doesn't tell the whole truth, at least does tell the truth and nothing but.
However, I'm not sure that "dialectic" works effectively as a translation in English. The problem is that philosophy is taught in schools in Italy and this word "dialettica" has entered the language so that it is commonly used in a general broad sense, rather than in the technical philosophical sense, so if you use it in English, all you get is the narrow technical sense, which fewer people know anyway. Obviously in documents where the "whole truth" is essential, you put footnotes to explain the whole truth.

claudiocambon Sep 12, 2009:

I respectfully disagree Dialectic has definitely always existed, but it is Hegel who first builds a whole worldview, or view of history, around it. That's why I started with him.

As a matter of principle, I think that if the concept exists, and can be translated, it should be translated. To me your suggestion like saying, let's not translate ammissione al passivo because most people don't know the term proving debts in bankruptcy.

Besides, many people looking at this catalog will know what they are talking about. I don't think it's that far out a concept.

I think your translation is perfectly serviceable, but I think it's a waste not to fully elucidate the concept when one can.

James (Jim) Davis Sep 12, 2009:

Logic vs dialectic Claudio I think that you'll find that dialectic (probably invented by Plato) first gained ground in Germany with Kant who separated transcendental logic into transcendental analytic and transcendental dialectic.
However, he was ill received in England. Legend has it that English philosophers read the first ten pages and said it was "all a load of Kant" (all a load of rubbish) and the phrase stuck, to become a saying still used today three hundred years later.
To the Englsh reader, it is all just another form of logic, hence my translation. Might be important, but if nobody would understand it (philosophy is not a mainstream subject at schools in most English speaking countries as it is in Italy), then you might just as well not translate it.

claudiocambon Sep 11, 2009:

Logic vs. dialectic There is a significant difference that matters, especially in Germany, whose philosophers spawned the idea (first Hegel, and then, of course, his pupil Marx), and in Berlin, which was a very communist city that fell hard to the Nazis, and which then lived out the cold war in more antagonistic circumstances than any other Western place. Even today, in developing the past, such as Potsdamer Platz, the Berliners talk about the destruction of the past giving way to the present. Therefore, the idea of resistance and opposition as embodied in the term dialectic is highly important, and not at all arcane, as Phil makes it out to be.