Ser - ente
| 21:31 Jan 15, 2012 |
| Spanish to English translations [PRO] Science - Social Science, Sociology, Ethics, etc. | |||||
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| Summary of answers provided | ||||
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| 4 +1 | being |
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| 4 +1 | Being - entity |
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| 4 | Existance - being |
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| Summary of reference entries provided | |||
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| Heidegger's vocabulary of being |
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| Discussion entries: 6 | |
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Answers
43 mins confidence: 
peer agreement (net): +1
peer agreement (net): +1being Explanation: Both "ser" and "ente" translate as 'being'. Heidegger only uses the term 'entities' in verg specific contexts, and always in the plural. It has been translated in the past as 'things'. See the references and discussion from last week. |
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2 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +1
1 day 11 mins confidence:
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3 hrs peer agreement (net): +3 |
| Reference: Heidegger's vocabulary of being Reference information: At the risk of stating the obvious, I think it is important to remember that Heidegger did not use the terms "being", "entity", "ser" or "ente" in Sein und Zeit; he used certain German words, which English and Spanish translators have rendered, variously, using the terms mentioned. Basically, four German terms are involved: "sein" (to be, infinitive), "seiend" (being, present participle), "Sein" (being, substantive ["the fact of being"]; substantives are always capitalized in German), and "Seiendes" ("that which is", a substantive derived from the present participle "seiend"; "ein Seiendes" is "something which is"). John Macquarrie, in the standard English version first published in 1962, explains in two footnotes near the beginning that he translates "sein" as "to be" or "being" (gerund), "seiend" usually as "being" (present participle), "Sein" as "Being" (capitalized), and "Seiendes" usually as "entity" or "entities". He remarks that "Seiendes" is one of the most important terms in the book, and that: "There is much to be said for translating 'Seiendes' by the noun 'being' or 'beings' (for it is often used in a collective sense). We feel, however, that it is smoother and less confusing to write 'entity' or 'entities'". So far, so good. In the very first sentence of his Spanish version (1997), the Chilean philosopher Jorge Eduardo Rivera renders "seiend", in Heidegger's translation of a quotation from Plato's Sophist, as "ente", where Macquarrie put "being". Generally, however, as far as I can tell from checking a few pages, Rivera uses "ser" for "sein" and "Sein" and "ente" for "Seiendes". One of the key early sentences involving these terms comes out as follows: Das Sein des Seienden »ist« nicht selbst ein Seiendes. (Heidegger) The Being of entities 'is' not itself an entity. (Macquarrie) El ser del ente no 'es', él mismo, un ente. (Rivera) What I don't know is what the Spanish philosopher José Gaos did with these terms in his earlier Spanish version of Sein und Zeit, published in 1951. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 3 hrs (2012-01-16 00:47:22 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- In the English version, entity is very often (though not always) used in the plural, entities, because, as Macquarrie explains, "das Seiendes" is very often used by Heidegger in a collective sense: "things that are". -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 12 hrs (2012-01-16 09:42:05 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- PART II Thus generations of English-speaking Heidegger scholars have grown accustomed to referring to "das Seiendes" as "entity" or "entities", owing to the explicit decision of Macquarrie and Robinson (sorry I forgot to mention Robinson) to translate it like that. As has been noted, they regarded "being/beings" as a sensible translation of "Seiendes", but thought it would make things clearer to use a different word, though they also noted that "entity" was not an entirely satisfactory term. HOWEVER, it must be remembered that the use or not of the word "entity" for this concept is not Heidegger's but ours. And not every Heidegger scholar agrees with it. It seems likely, in fact, that referring to "das Seiendes" as "being" will now become much more usual, following the decision taken by Joan Stambaugh to translate "das Seiendes" as "being" in her new translation of Being and Time (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2010). Stambaugh, Professor at CUNY, is a highly-respected Heidegger specialist. She pretty well dispenses entirely with the word "entity". In the preface to Stambaugh's translation, Dennis Schmidt comments on how this problem has been handled: "One difference in this new edition is that the German word being translated is frequently identified by being inserted in square brackets. Doing this solves a number of problems such as those arising from the difficulty in distinguishing "being" ["Sein"] from "beings" ["Seiende"]. Whenever there was any chance of confusion about the translation of these words, the German words were inserted" (p. xix). And so it is: every time Heidegger uses "Seiendes" or an inflected form of it, Stambaugh translates it as "being" or "beings". So the sentence quoted above, "Das Sein des Seienden »ist« nicht selbst ein Seiendes", comes out as: The being of being "is" itself not a being (p. 7). It is thus quite defensible to use the word "being" in English to render both "Sein" and to "Seiendes" which are respectively translated as "ser" and "ente" in Spanish. |
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