Translation between Hermeneutics and Metaphysics

This project starts with two guiding assumptions about a philosophy of translation: (a) that translation is hermeneutics and (b) that it reveals metaphysics. Thinking about translation is shaped by underlying assumptions about language and meaning. Because such presuppositions are often not made explicit, a discussion about translation can quickly short-circuit. In this project, I will explore one such situation from the area of Bible translation. The test case is the discussion about translation of the theological metaphor “Son of God” in contexts where this term might be misunderstood by uninitiated readers or hearers. For more than ten years the discussion about this issue has often been hindered by confusion about the underlying implicit presuppositions of Relevance Theory (RT), the translation model used to defend alternative translations. The goal of this project is to bring conceptual clarity to this discussion. This will be done by showing how the discussion is actually far more complicated and both philosophically and theologically intricate. This project will put the test case in a wider context. First of all, by engaging with Venuti following his suggestion that translation thinking can be divided in two kinds: instrumentalist and hermeneutic. While his Derridean focus on hermeneutics is helpful as a critique of RT, it is not without problems. The second context within which we will look is a theological perspective as proposed by Pickstock, which will help to explore some of the underlying metaphysical questions. This will also help to connect the question about a theory for Bible translation with an explicitly theological perspective on Bible translation in a liturgical context.