scholarly journals Opportunities Seized: From Tolstóigh to Pelévin

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 63-78
Author(s):  
Mark Ó Fionnáin ◽  

From the start of the Gaelic Revival in the 1890s to the present day, various Russian authors have appeared in Irish in translation, from Tolstoy, Chekhov and Pushkin in the early days to Kharms and Pelevin in more recent times. Although it is unlikely that many of those who have translated into Irish were doing so from the original Russian, this was indeed the case in several instances. The aim of this paper is to thus take a look at several of these translations from Russian in more detail, namely some of those done by Liam Ó Rinn, Maighréad Nic Mhaicín, an tAthair Gearóid Ó Nualláin and, in more modern times, by the author of this paper, and to examine the translators’ approach to the texts, in order to see how they made use of them to present their Irish-language reader with diverse cultural, linguistic or literary information. From the point of view of culture, this paper will also look at how they set about the task of rewriting Russian names and nouns in their Irish texts, looking at whether they relied on English forms, or attempted to rewrite them in Irish according to its strict orthographic rules. This is in contrast to the English – and other – translations of the same eras, which tended to ignore such opportunities to expand their readers’ knowledge of Russia and the Russians and about which, in relation to one recent translation, one reviewer said it was “a missed opportunity”.

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-83
Author(s):  
Sorcha De Brún

Abstract The publication of the Irish-language translation of Dracula in 1933 by Seán Ó Cuirrín was a landmark moment in the history of Irish-language letters. This article takes as its starting point the idea that language is a central theme in Dracula. However, the representation of Transylvania in the translation marked a departure from Bram Stoker’s original. A masterful translation, one of its most salient features is Ó Cuirrín’s complex use of the Irish language, particularly in relation to Eastern European language, character, and landscapes. The article examines Ó Cuirrín’s prose and will explore how his approaches to concrete and abstract elements of the novel affect plot, character, and narration. The first section explores how Dracula is treated by Ó Cuirrín in the Irish translation and how this impacts the Count’s persona and his identity as Transylvanian. Through Ó Cuirrín’s use of idiom, alliteration, and proverb, it will be shown how Dracula’s character is reimagined, creating a more nuanced narrative than the original. The second section shows how Ó Cuirrín translates Jonathan Harker’s point of view in relation to Dracula. It shows that, through the use of figurative language, Ó Cuirrín develops the gothic element to Dracula’s character. The article then examines Ó Cuirrín’s translations of Transylvanian landscapes and soundscapes. It will show how Ó Cuirrín’s translation matched Stoker’s original work to near perfection, but with additional poetic techniques, and how Ó Cuirrín created a soundscape of horror throughout the entirety of the translation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4-1) ◽  
pp. 139-153
Author(s):  
Nataliya Kanaeva ◽  

The article continues the polemics on the problems of interaction of philosophical cultures in the era of globalization, which was started at the meetings of the Round Table "Geography of Rationality". The author gives answers to critical questions, explains the methodology and principles of her work with Indian philosophical texts. A short research of the meta-term "cognitive subject" is an example of her methods. The analysis of cognitive subject aimed to justify the absence of the concepts of reason and rationality in Indian epistemic culture, the cornerstones of Western epistemic culture, since Modern times. The justification was carried out by comparing the generalized model of the cognitive subject, abstracted from the writings of empiricists and rationalists of the XVII–XVIII centuries, with the generalized models of the cognitive subject, reconstructed on the basis of authoritative writings of three variants of Indian epistemological teachings: Advaita Vedānta, Jainism and Buddhism. From the author's point of view, the absence of the concepts of reason and rationality in India leads to the non-classical problem of pluralism of epistemic cultures, and the exploration of the meta-term "cognitive subject" allows us to find, on the one hand, intersections in the contents of epistemologies in Indian philosophy and Western metaphysics of Modern times, and on the other, their incompatible contents, which are specific manifestations of pluralism of epistemic cultures. For her reconstruction of the cognitive subject models the author takes the principle of "double perspective" in combination with the methods of hermeneutical and logical analysis of philosophical terms. The principle determinates the consideration of the theoretical object from two sides: European and Indian. Having appeared in the Western epistemic culture, these methods effectively work to objectify the results of socio-humanitarian research, thanks to which they are becoming increasingly widespread among non-Western cross-cultural philosophers. When the author applies the method of logical analysis to justify the absence of the concepts of reason and rationality in India, she is guided by the rules of logical semantics and the principles of semiotics. The compared terms, Western and Indian, are considered as signs with their own meanings and senses. The senses are understood as sets of predicates important for solving the author’s task. The author of the article, taking into account the experience of famous philosophers, negatively assesses the possibility of solving the problem of unambiguously correct translation.


Author(s):  
Joanna G. Patsioti

I examine the philosophical perspectives of Aristotle on issues of medical ethics and on his social ethics in general, including the moral issues of abortion, euthanasia, and other issues of social ethics such as the issue of cloning. I have chosen the domain of applied ethics as viewed from the Aristotelian point of view precisely because certain issues have been virtually unexamined by scholars. I shall direct attention to certain treatises of the Aristotelian corpus such as On the History of Animals, On the Generation of Animals, On the Soul, The Nicomachean Ethics and The Politics. My main objective is to provide a more systematic account of the Aristotelian perspectives on the above controversial issues and to establish the Stagirite’s main approach to social ethics. For this reason, issues like the notion of personhood, his attitude towards death, and his theory of the will and ethical conduct of a moral citizen-agent will be examined. Throughout this investigation, the close interrelation between philosophy and medicine, both in antiquity and in modern times, will also become more apparent.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 100-113
Author(s):  
Jean-Yves Heurtebise

Abstract The purpose of this article is to present the multidimensional issue of an ‘energy transition’ from a philosophical, that is, conceptual and analytical, point of view. The argument of this article is that ‘energy transition’ is not simply a technological and economic problem but also an epistemological, cultural, anthropological and even metaphysical one. Energy transition does not only consist of changing the kind of energy that is produced and consumed to power our modern middle-income societies, from fossil fuels to renewable energies. Energy transition asks us to understand what is implied in cultural and social terms by such a shift from ‘grey’ to ‘green’ sources of energy that does not only entail qualitative transformation but also could imply quantitative curtailment. What will be the consequences of our necessary departure from ‘petromodernity’, that is, from the mode of living that came with fossil fuels in modern times that shape our current age of the Anthropocene? To address this question, different dimensions of the philosophy of energy will be studied: epistemological, phenomenological, anthropological, critical and metaphysical. In conclusion, we will, first, propose the notion of a ‘negative energy tax’ to address the problems of ‘energy injustice’. We will then refer to Bataille to provide an ontology of energy that can help to redefine our assumptions and expectations regarding energy spending.


1939 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacques Maritain

To Avoid misunderstanding, I should note at once that my point of view is here not that of the mere logic of ideas and doctrines, but that of the concrete logic of the events of history.From the first point of view, that of the mere logic of ideas and doctrines, it is evident that there are many possible positions other than the “pure” positions which I shall examine. One might ask theoretically and in the abstract, what value these various positions have. That is not what I plan to do. In a word, my point of view is that of the philosophy of culture, and not that of metaphysics.


1942 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 862-876 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. N. Poliak

IN an article published several years ago we have collected evidence corroborating al-Maqrīzī's statement (mistrusted by Quatremère in Histoire des Mongols) that siyāsa, the legal code of the Mamlūks, was founded upon the Great Yāsa of Chingiz-Khān. The Great Yāsa was not merely a code of criminal and civil law but a system of rules governing the entire political, social, military, and economic life of the community which adopted it. The expansion of this system outside the Mongol nation was due to the belief that it was responsible for the extraordinary military success of the Mongols in the thirteenth century, and that it might be regarded as a talisman ensuring victories on the battle-field. The Yāsa rules concerning communal organization were even more important from this point of view than the laws treating of the behaviour of individuals. It is natural, therefore, to suppose that not only the Mamlūk criminal, civil, and commercial law but also the general organization of the Mamlūk state was based upon the Yāsa. The present article, inspired by the attempts made in modern times to collect and systematize the fragmentary evidence concerning the contents of the Yāsa, is intended to show that this organization is indeed comprehensible only in the light of such evidence. Some preliminary remarks are necessary.


2020 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamás Farkas

Constructing history – constructing names. Personal names of early Hungarian history and the posterity The topic of the paper is how people of modern times attempt to approach the onomasticon of personal names of the past, of which they lack sufficient knowledge; and how they create a picture of it for themselves and their peers. The paper presents the topic with the help of examples from different eras and genres of cultural history. The paper is based on sources, originating from centuries later, of personal names of the Hungarian Middle Ages, especially the time of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin (the end of the 9th century). In the case of the 13th-century Gesta Hungarorum, the intentions of the author and the methods he applied to create and give personal names to narrate the events of the Conquest, of which he had little knowledge, can be easily identified. The writers and poets of the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century – which was the era of national awakening, language reform and romanticism – also exemplify how authors could use old or create new personal names in their historical works influenced by the conditions of their era. Continuing the topic, the paper discusses the process and methods of renewing the onomasticon of first names in national contexts, the role of first names registries from this point of view, and how these often paint a misleading picture of their subject, and thus Hungarian history. Finally, the paper deals not only with the laic considerations of our oldest personal names, but also with the problems of their discussion from a historical point of view, emphasizing the need to involve not only historical onomastics but also the approaches of literary onomastics, folk and applied onomastics.


Author(s):  
Miodrag Kalčić

In the Middle Age and the Early Modern Times alchemy (transmutation into gold or chrysopoeia) was a widespread art and a popular craft of creating artificial gold. Because if failed to produce any practical results it shifted from the initial experimental practice (proto-chemistry) ever more to mysticism and spirituality. In Snježana Paušek-Baždar’s Croatian Alchemists through the Centuries alchemy is seen almost exclusively from this supernatural and super-sensory point of view, ignoring the history of natural sciences, and especially chemistry. Cited sources and the preference for Christian mysticism and esotericism clearly revealthe authorʼs unscientific approach to alchemy, one that is best suited for the pro-Western syncretic and eclectic social movement (and ideology) of improvised merging of the various incomparable beliefs, orientations, cosmic teachings and contemporary sciences, the New Age and the plethora of deriving pseudosciences, where modern alchemy appears to have found its home. Nine alchemists are represented in this highly acclaimed (both from the public and Croatian scientific community) book Croatian Alchemists through the Centuries: Barbara of Cilli, Daniel Justinopolitanus, Pietro Buono, John the Cleric, Frederik Grisogono, Giulio Camillo Delminio, Giovanni Bratti, Ivan Leopold Payer and Ignjat Martinović. Critical, scientific and historical analysis of these alleged Croatian alchemists determined that none of them deserve the epithet ʼCroatian Alchemistʼ: they either were not alchemists in the true sense of the word, or do not belong to the Croatian ethnical corps. According to Paušek-Baždar, three of them were from Pula (Daniel Justinopolitanus, Pietro Buono and Giovanni Bratti), which is a historical fabrication since only Pietro Buono spent a short time in Pula. Moreover their ethnic affiliation was certainly not Croatian. The other five men and one woman may have sporadically dabbled in alchemy, so they can, at best, be considered quasi- or semi-alchemists. Again, the Croatian nationality of than a some of these is rather questionable. The New Age approach of Croatian Alchemists Through the Centuries is alchemically unconvincing and ethnically (Croatian) manipulative, full of esoteric mists, astrological shadows, Christian mysteries, gnostic spectres, hermetic gloom, historical fictions, superficial interpretations, and tendentious explanations. In conclusion, the book is a historically arbitrary and scientifically unfounded New Age, pseudo-science.


Author(s):  
A. V Halapsis

Purpose. Reconstruction of Empedocles’ doctrine from the point of view of philosophical anthropology. Theoretical basis. Methodological basis of the article is the anthropological comprehending of Empedocles’ text fragments presented in the historical-philosophical context. Originality. Cognition of nature in Ancient Greece was far from the ideal of the objective knowledge formed in modern times, cognition of the world as it exists before man and independently of him. Whatever the ancient philosophers talked about, man was always in the center of their attention. I proposed an anthropological version of the interpretation of the doctrine of Empedocles, within the framework of which various elements of his concept fit into a consistent model. Conclusions. Empedocles’ anthropology is based on the recognition of several fundamental things. First of all, there is no death. Second, there is no fundamental difference between human and celestial. This line is conventional and under certain conditions one can overcome it. Cod can become a human (for example, for a deed unworthy of a deity), and a human can become God. Teaching of evolution is also double. Not only physical shell evolves, keeping only the most adapted species, but the soul too. The latter can both ascend to the gods and go down to the bushes and fish. Purification of the soul and mastering the magic of the elements gives an impetus for a correct direction of evolution. Empedocles is an anthropologist-practitioner, who shows by his example that a human can cope with all the elements and reach divinity. He chose (or convinced himself that he chose) the elemental ingredients for penetrating the Fortunate Isles, leaving the instructions on how to become God.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document