Reading 1999 No.8 has an article by Mr. Gu entitled "Translation of Foreign Terms and Academic Problems in China", which is about "alienation". The author thinks that this translation is "not a mistake, but due to its great significance and far-reaching influence, we should pay special attention to it". "In the 1980s, there was a big debate about alienation in the theoretical circle. The word' alienation' sounds a bit awkward, giving people the feeling that it is nothing more than change. However, the word is certainly not that simple. "
After describing the etymology and semantic development of this foreign word, the author said: "Obviously, the so-called' alienation' view is a view that the subject and object have been transposed or transformed in some way. According to these investigations, although we can still use the word' alienation' in some occasions, we might as well translate the word' alienation' in English into terms such as' subject-object translocation phenomenon' or' anti-objectification phenomenon' in more occasions. " In his view, these two translated names are "clear at a glance" in meaning, but also more popular, so as not to give readers an "awkward, mysterious and unfathomable impression".
I agree with Mr. Gu in principle that the translation should be easy to understand. I don't like the tendency of some articles to show off new terms to pretend to be profound. But I agree with the translation of "alienation". In my opinion, it is not wrong to say that "alienation" is "subject-object translocation (or inversion)", but it also misses two important meanings: first, this object is not the object of the peripheral things that the subject accidentally encounters, but what the subject originally owned, even produced or differentiated from the activities of the subject. Second, this object is not a general anti-object, but binds, opposes and dominates the original subject, making it fall into a non-free situation. Just saying "subject-object translocation" or "subject-object inversion" cannot express these two meanings.
For example, when the two armies are at war, Party A attacks Party B and Party B is in a defensive position. At this time, Party A is the subject and Party B is the object. After a contest, Party B launched a counterattack, Party A retreated, Party B became the subject again, and Party A became the object. This transposition of subject and object cannot be said to be alienation. Another example is Socrates in ancient Greece. When arguing with others, he always admits his ignorance first, and he is willing to ask the other side for advice and listen to their opinions. This is putting yourself in the position of the object. The other party often pretends to be the subject and gives him various teachings. So Socrates asked questions one after another, exposing each other's self-contradiction, and finally exhausted each other and had to admit his ignorance, but Socrates was right. Of course, this is also anti-customer-oriented, but it can't be said to be alienation.
Wen Gu said, "The German original of the word alienation is Entfremdung, which is translated from English alienation". I'm afraid he said it backwards. It should be translated from English into German. As Mr. Gu said, it was Hegel who made the concept of "alienation" a core concept. The concept of "alienation" we use now originated from Hegel, inherited from Feuerbach and completed by Marx. Of course, we can also find the influence of Fichte and Schiller from Hegel's concept of alienation, but they are both Germans; Even back to Rousseau, he is still not English, but French. Therefore, English alienation, as a philosophical concept, is translated from German Entfremdung. It is very important to understand this point, so that we can start from the meaning of this concept in German philosophy when considering the translation of names.
Hegel put forward a famous argument in Phenomenology of Spirit: "The key of all problems lies in understanding and expressing real things or truth not only as entities, but also as subjects." Hegel means that this entity is not static, but dynamic, and it can establish its own object or object. This is "one divides into two", or, in Hegel's original words, "it is a process of dividing a single thing into two, or a dual process of establishing opposites". However, due to the initiative of the subject, this opposition will be sublated and reunified (this can be said to be "one"). If you stay in the original unity, there is no internal negation, and there is no "taking the other and alienation seriously and overcoming this alienation", it is not a real subject.
Hegel's system is such a three-stage form: idea-nature-spirit. Idea is a pure logical category, which is externalized or alienated into nature, that is, the idea changes from "freedom" to "the other". Originally, the concept of clean and open, not polluted by reality, took an external and material form here, was bound and fell into an unfree state, and could only hide behind nature and carry out activities in secret. In man, the idea finally broke free from the bondage of nature, abandoned alienation and returned to itself, and appeared as a kind of self-consciousness (self-consciousness). This is the spirit.
This is Feuerbach. The popular view is that Feuerbach abandoned Hegel's dialectics, which is a bit unfair. Feuerbach thinks that God is the alienation of human nature, and man created God instead of man. This is the application of Hegel's dialectical materialism. Of course, this is also the inversion of subject and object, but Feuerbach means not only that man has changed from subject to object, but also that it is the loss of human nature, because man has dedicated the best things in human nature to God. Divinity is human nature and the idealization of human nature. The greater God is, the humbler man is; The more omnipotent God is, the more incompetent man is; The more omniscient God is, the more ignorant people are. In short, "in order to make God everything, man has become nothing." Criticizing religion is to get back what belongs to people from God, give it back to people, and restore people's rich humanity.
The person who really popularized the concept of alienation was Marx. Although the concept of alienation plays an important role in Hegel's philosophy, scholars who study Hegel have not paid attention to it, and even the term alienation is rarely used. Marx first saw the critical and revolutionary significance of this concept. In1843 "Introduction to Criticism of Hegel's Philosophy of Right", he continued from where Feuerbach left off, pointing out that religion is an upside-down world view, and this society produces religion because it is an upside-down world. Marx not only means that people have changed from subject to object, but also means that people have been distorted by social relations and lost their own essence (Marx said that autocratic system makes people unable to be human); Marx believes that this kind of social relationship was originally created and produced by people in the process of realizing their own essence. The conclusion of religious criticism is "Man is the highest essence of man". In this case, "all relationships that make people insulted, enslaved, abandoned and despised must be overthrown". In this way, Marx developed Feuerbach's criticism of religious alienation into a criticism of real social alienation.
In the philosophical manuscript of 1844, Marx further criticized the labor alienation of capitalism, which became the central part of this manuscript. Labor alienation includes the alienation of labor products: the more valuable the goods produced by workers, the cheaper they become; The more wealth a worker produces, the poorer he becomes; Labor creates palaces, but it creates slums for workers; Labor creates beauty, but it makes workers deformed; Labor produces wisdom, but it produces ignorance for workers. "The externalization of workers in his products not only means that his labor becomes an object and an external existence, but also means that his labor, as a different thing from him, does not depend on him and exists outside him, becoming an independent force opposed to him; It means that the life he gives to the object is opposed to him as hostile and different things. " (Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 42, 9 1-92)
Here, Marx used the word "Entaeusserung" instead of "alienation", but these two words have the same meaning here. In another place, Marx called this phenomenon "alienation and loss of workers' products in objectification". Article 4 1 in the annotation of Volume 42 of the Complete Works of Marx and Engels says that Marx often uses these two German terms side by side to express the concept of alienation in his manuscripts. "But he sometimes uses the word Entaeusserung to mean another meaning, such as the exchange activities, transformation and acquisition from one state to another, that is, the economic and social phenomenon that does not mean hostile and alien relations. This means that "alienation" means hostility and dissent.
Hegel's concept of alienation is similar to "objectification", and the meaning that the object dominates the subject in turn is not obvious, but it is only strengthened by Marx. Marx distinguished alienation from objectification. He said: "The product of labor is labor that is fixed in an object and materialized into an object. This is the objectification of labor. " Only under the condition of capitalism, workers can not only possess this object, but also be enslaved by this object (object), and this objectification becomes alienation (see the Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Vol.42, p.91). It can be seen that changing the translated name of alienation into "subject-object translocation" is not in line with Marx's original intention.
"Philosophical Manuscripts" was not published by Marx before his death, and Marx rarely used this term after that (except for the economic manuscripts of 1857- 1858). 1872 When the first volume of Das Kapital was published in French, Marx changed three of the four "alienation" terms. Hu Qiaomu once used this incident to illustrate that Marx abandoned the concept of alienation. In fact, I think Marx was just worried that French readers would feel creative about this concept of German philosophy. In his letter to Maurice La chartres, a French publisher, he expressed the concern that French readers who are eager to pursue conclusions will be discouraged because he can't start research by using Hegel's method. According to Sartre's readme in Critique of Dialectical Reason, 1925, when he was twenty years old, not only did he not speak Marx, but he was even afraid of dialectics, so he didn't even know Hegel. In this way, it is not surprising that Marx was worried.
1932 The publication of Philosophical Manuscripts immediately aroused the interest of researchers, but the discussion about alienation really became lively after the end of World War II. This is mainly in Germany and France. So when did the English version of the manuscript appear? Generally speaking, it is an English version published by Moscow foreign languages press 1959, and the translator is Martin milligan. At that time, it was popular to use foreignization to translate Entfremdung, but milligan adopted the name of foreignization and used foreignization to translate Entaeusserung. Milligan's reason is that the alienation of English contains legal and commercial meanings (such as the transfer of property), which is expressed by Hegel in Entaeusserung, but not by Entfremdung in German. Milligan's English translation of foreignization can provide reference for us to choose Chinese versions.
The first Chinese translation of the philosophical manuscript appeared in 1956, and the translator was He Sijing. Because the original text was difficult to understand and the translation was blunt, it didn't seem to have much impact at that time.
1963 I first encountered the problem of defining the concept of alienation. At that time, Zhou Yang was preparing a report in the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences, which talked about alienation. This speech was sent to Mao Zedong, who was in the south at that time, for review. Mao attached great importance to it and instructed him to help revise the article. One of the problems encountered in the process of revision is how to explain the word "alienation" in a few sentences. Kang Sheng came, and so did Chen Boda, but I checked all the available reference materials at that time, and I couldn't find a ready-made definition. Kang Sheng looked up the old version of Ci Hai, and found the word, but explained that it was a physiological term, which was contrary to the meaning of "assimilation". Kang Sheng said, it's no use. I didn't take part in the drafting of this report, but when I was studying alienation, I was ordered to draft an explanation. My explanation was adopted. Later, I also used it in the article "On the Concept of Alienation" written by myself. It is like this: "The subject has its own opposites and objects due to the development of its own contradictions, and this object, as an external and alien force, overrides the subject and turns to bind and suppress the subject. This is alienation." (On the philosophical front, 47 1 page).
My definition summarizes the alienation concepts of Hegel, Feuerbach and Marx, but the focus is Marx. The "subject" mentioned here is the "absolute spirit" in Hegel's view, the abstract "person" in Feuerbach's view and the practical person in Marx's view.
In the early 1980s, I had the opportunity to see the explanations of "alienation" in some English encyclopedias and philosophical dictionaries. To my comfort, after comparison, my definition in the 1960s is generally tenable.
If the above explanation of the meaning and context of the word alienation is correct, then the question of choosing what translation is easy. In my opinion, "foreignization" translation is better than other translations. Simply put, "alienation" is "alienation". In Chinese, "dissident" not only means "different from oneself" or "separated from oneself", but also means "opposition" and even "hostility". So this translation is very appropriate. In addition, since the self in Alien is human, Alien is also dehumanized.
1980 when faced with the question of "what is alienation" put forward by some graduate students for the first time, I was also worried: would they think it was a strange term? Can they accept this concept? But I found this worry unnecessary, and they listened with great interest. Before long, the concept of alienation will become a hot topic together with humanitarianism. Just when this discussion was in the ascendant, it was interrupted. Now people have an embarrassing, mysterious and unfathomable feeling about the word alienation, which is regrettable.