Project

PHILTRANS – “Philosophy as Translation: Toward a Translational Education”, is an individual post-doctoral project funded by the European Commission (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions), led by Elena Nardelli and based at the University of Padova and the University of Kyoto.

The conviction at the heart of this project is that philosophy can no longer postpone systematic reflection on translation. This is not only due to a widespread “translational turn” in the humanities but because translation is at the core of philosophy itself. Throughout the history of thought, the reciprocal relation between translation and philosophy appears in two guises: on the one hand, as the translation of philosophy; on the other, as the philosophy of translation, i.e. as sporadic philosophical remarks on translation. PHILTRANS’ hypothesis is that there is an even more intimate relation between the two – one that concerns the practice and meaning of philosophy itself, which cannot do without a translational element. Translation is the motive force of philosophy; it is an inchoate and formative element of several philosophical projects, offering a transformation of the tradition’s texts and, more importantly, of the translator.