Translation as Paradigm for Human Sciences

What does metalanguage mean, if not translation?“The language of Europe is translation,” Umberto Eco once said. What if, from a philosophical point of view, as well as from a political point of view, the language of the world, and not only the language of Europe, were translation?My point of departure in and of translation is my recent, still ongoing, experience with the French Vocabulaire européen des philosophies, dictionnaire des intraduisibles,1 as well as its translations into other languages, particularly into English, as the Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon.2 I will first describe how the problematic of translation and untranslatability made us work and think “together,” as a...