Alfa i Omega
Alpha and Omega

Summary/Abstract: Bringing together Paul Ricoeur’s On Translation and Peeter Torop’s Total Translation seems a risky intellectual enterprise, even if its rationale and incongruities are informatively pointed out by Edward Balcerzan, when he introduces this joint publication in his foreward entitled Total Translation, or on the Power of Hyperbole. The French philosopher’s phenomenological search for the true nature of translation is accompanied by his awareness that fi nding an/the answer is not realistic. His reflection on translation does not clarify – it complicates instead. Ricoeur, inspired by Antoine Berman and George Steiner, urges us to forsake the distinction into the translatable and the untranslatable; he chooses to consider translation as “linguistic hospitality,” which allows us to understand our identity in relation to “the other.” Ricoeur’s probing of the mystery of translation stands in opposition to the systematizing and classifying work of the Estonian semiotician. Torop’s attempt suffers from the enormity of the discussed material and lack of precision. Unfortunately, the Polish version is flawed, so the presentation of Torop’s argument will profi t from careful re-edition or even retranslation. Importantly, however, the two thinkers on translation should be presented separately.

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