Difference in Translation (review)

346Philosophy and Literature essay, also on Kant, which focuses on die doctrine ofthe schemata and die function of imagination (and creativity) tiiat is related to them. Bossart here points toward a unitary function such that a difference of degree rather than of kind is entailed by an application of the Kantian notions to die arts and the sciences. Finally there is Milic Capek's wonderfuUy compressed essay discussing creativity witii respect to theses of microphysics where, on this basis, he argues for die philosophic meaningfulness of die term 'creativity,' relating diereby die problems of determinism and creativity. In general The Languages of Creativity contains material which ought to be of more than merely local disciplinary interest. There is, however, one thing of particular interest to me: namely, that it is not at all apparent why, after twentyfive years, Thomas Kuhn's properly notable The Structure ofScientific Revolutions should still be given the sort of credence it is. I do not intend any diminution of the work's historical import, but radier want to imply diat it is clearly no longer to be taken as an adequate statement of the nature of science or of scientific change. More particularly, it is not inteUigible why people looking in particular at science and art do not pay more heed to Paul Feyerabend who, for all of his idiosyncratic crankiness, nevertheless has a greater sensitivity toward the interrelation of art and science man most philosophers of science. In short, for interdisciplinary studies there is more of value dian Kuhn's youdifully fertile work. Furthermore it was perplexing that no one should discuss the idea that the notion of"what science is" changes, just as the notion of"what art is" changes. This "fact" itself might have been of genuine consequence for die discussion of the similarities and differences between art and science. Nonedieless, The Languages of Creativity is worth the read on a cross-country flight. Whitman CollegeJosephJ. Maier Difference in Translation, edited by Joseph F. Graham; 253 pp. CorneU: Cornell University Press, 1985, $32.50 cloth, $9.95 paper. As Joseph F. Graham writes in his introduction to Difference in Translation: "The contributors to diis volume are convinced diat somediing has indeed happened to change our dunking about language radically, and diey are determined to elaborate some of these specific and strategic consequences for translation " (p. 20). The foUowing essays by Philip E. Lewis, Cynthia Chase, Richard Rand, Alan Bass, BarbaraJohnson, RobertJ. Matmews, andJacques Derrida explore the possibilities which are presented for literary studies once the conven- Reviews347 tional logocentric concept of translation, as die undisturbed passage of meaning from one language to anodier, has been deconstructed. While many readers will, I imagine, turn first to read Derrida's contribution, it is Alan Bass's excellent essay "On the History of a Mistranslation and die Psychoanalytic Movement" diat is most worthy of praise and attention. Bass — who is the translator ofDerrida's WritingandDifference— has written a clear, weUresearched essay on Freud's mistranslation, in his monograph Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory ofHis Childhood, of the Italian nibio as vulture, instead of kite. Bass investigates die link between Freud's mistranslation and the theory of sexuality and concludes that Freud's mistranslation is itself a fetish. Freud mistranslates nibio as vulture because it "fits in too well with die related theories of the infantile sexual theories and of 'Egyptian' language formation" (p. 137). The mistranslation is too precious for Freud to translate correcdy, as it aUows him to connect Leonardo's dream with the Egyptian myth of the vulture-headed mother goddess Mut, a mydiological figure which for Freud was symbolic of die maternal phaUus. For diose who are more familiar widi Derrida's work in English than in its original (or given the deconstructive critique of die original, perhaps I should say die non-original original) French, the contribution by Philip E. Lewis, "The Measure ofTranslation Effects," provides a useful, though somewhat meandering , account of important differences encountered in translation. By comparing die English translation of "White Mydiology" to die original French text, Lewis demonstrates how Derrida's essay has been mistranslated by the translator ignoring what "White Mydiology" has to say...