Notes on Metaphor

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Notes

1 Translator’s Note: This series of notes, collected by Levinas, was published by R. Calin under the title ‘Notes sur la métaphore’, in D. Cohen-Levinas and B. Clément (eds) Emmanuel Levinas et les territoires de la pensée (Paris: PUF, 2007). The texts stem from the Levinas archive at the Institut Mémoires de l’édition contemporaine (IMEC), and can be read as preparation for the talk Levinas presented at the Collège philosophique on 26 February 1962, simply entitled, ‘La métaphore’. Insofar as some notes relate to Karl Löwith’s Gesammelte Abhandlungen, Zur Kritik der geschichtlichen Existenz, we can assume that they were written after 1960. Orthographic difficulties are in parentheses; French originals are italicized in square brackets. All footnotes are Calin’s, except where indicated by TN. Rather than turn Levinas’ notes into complete sentences, we have attempted to maintain their fragmented form. In this way, we follow Benjamin (following Pannwitz): ‘Our translators, even the very best ones, proceed from a wrong premise. They want to turn Hindi, Greek, English into German instead of turning German into Hindi, Greek, English. Our translators have a far greater reverence for the usage of their own language than for the spirit of the foreign works … The basic error of the translator is that he preserves the state in which his own language happens to be instead of allowing his language to be powerfully affected by the foreign tongue’: W. Benjamin, ‘Task of the Translator’, in Selected Writings, Vol. I (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 261–2. Thanks should also go to Joseph Cohen for help with particularly difficult points in translating Levinas' French.

2 TN: This is not another 9/, but seems to be an error of numeration.

3 TN: apparently another numbering error.

4 Here Levinas is referring to Karl Löwith, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, Zur Kritik der geschichtlichen Existenz (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1960).

5 TN: Levinas uses the German term, which could be translated as response or responding, addressing, accosting, approaching, speaking or appealing to.

6 Edmund Schlink, ‘Die Struktur der dogmatischen Aussage als oekumenisches Problem’, Kerygma und Dogma, Zeitschrift für Forschung und kirchliche Lehre, 3 Jahrgang, Heft 4/Oktober 1957, p. 285. Levinas cites Löwith’s citation of Schlink (Löwith, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, p. 211).