[lit-ideas] Re: Mirembe...Ny Times...eternitytime
- From: "Peter D. Junger" <junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 21:20:26 -0500
Robert Paul writes:
: 'A characteristic remark that Wittgenstein would make when referring to
: someone who was notably generous or kind was "He is a _human
: being_!"?thus implying that most people fail even to be human.'
:
: ?Norman Malcom, Ludwig Wittgenstein: a Memoir, p. 61
:
: Robert Paul
: Reed College
I doubt that that is the implication, since Wittgenstein would
probably have been thinking "er ist ein Mensch" or, as people
would say in New York, "he is a mensch." "Mensch" can be
translated as "human being" but that hardly gets the sense
of the word, which is probably more like "humane person" or
"warm person" or simply "good person." But then, of course,
the word "person," when translated back into German, is a rather
unflattering word for a woman---a lady of good family might well
refer to a shopgirl as "diese Person."
To translate is, after all, to betray.
--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
EMAIL: junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx URL: http://samsara.law.cwru.edu
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