WHAT WOULD A HEGELIAN PHILOSOPHY OF TRANSLATION LOOK LIKE? REFLECTIONS FROM THE FRENCH TRANSLATIONS OF THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT

Hegel's Phenomenology has been translated four times in French, and each of these translations sheds interesting light on Hegel's thought. The fact that these translations are in many respects complementary provides an illustration of a variety of dilemmas a translator has to face. In a first step, this article reconstructs a series of alternatives in philosophy of translation and tries to define a Hegelian way of sublating these alternatives. In a second step, the choices made by each of the French translators of the Phenomenology and the ways in which they criticize each other is analyzed. In a third step, this article compares four translations of three famous passages in order to raise the following issue: has a progress taken place?