Topoi 10 (2):155-161 (
1991)
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Abstract
The remarks which follow are intended to address a certain apparent asymmetry as between German
and Anglo-Saxon philosophy. Put most simply, it is clear to every philosopher moving backwards
and forwards between the two languages that the translation of an Anglo-Saxophone philosophical
text into German is in general a much easier task than is the translation of a German philosophical
text into English. The hypothesis suggests itself immediately that this is so because English
philosophical writings are in the main clear and intelligible, and therefore easy to translate. The texts
of German philosophy, on the other hand, both classical and contemporary, seem in many cases to
be marked by stylistic obscurities or idiosyncracies of a sort which make them not translatable in
the strict sense at all.