Introduction to Philosophy: A Translational Approach

There is no via regia (“royal road”) to philosophy; no philosopher who alone has conveyed its essential thoughts, no method that reveals its most hidden truths, no concept that sums up all its key problems. Moreover, there is no single language – like ancient Greek and German, as once was believed, or global English which many today mistake for universal – in which one shall begin to think philosophically. This is why this “introduction to philosophy” takes its starting point with words instead of concepts, or more precisely, with words of different tongues, and not simply with different concepts within one single language. If the discordance between languages is a curse for religious belief, as the Biblical myth of Babel wants us to believe, for philosophy, it is rather a blessing. Finally, to learn to philosophize means, before all, to learn to deal with differences. This is why the praxis of translation – of dealing with differences, not only semantic but also syntactic and grammatical – must become an integral part of any serious introduction to philosophy today. Translation, in the end, is but a know-how with differences. This is what makes it a good paradigm not only for human sciences but also for progressive political practice.

The class will work with one single book: Barbara Cassin (ed.), Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon, translated by:  Steven Rendall, Christian Hubert, Jeffrey Mehlman, Nathanael Stein, and Michael Syrotinski. Translation edited by Emily Apter, Jacques Lezra, and Michael Wood, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2014.

The task of each student is to bring to the class an “introduction to philosophy” in his or her so-called mother tongue. It might be a philosophy textbook from high school, a book originally written by a local/national philosopher, or a local translation of a foreign “Introduction to Philosophy”.

Consists in active participation and contribution (discursive, textual, and performative).

The module grading is based on the mentioned contribution, active in-class participation and

• - submission of written assignments (word minimum of 800 total)

 “Students from other departments or universities will be given a place on the course subject to room capacities.”