KudoZ home » German to English » Philosophy

Ur-Modelle

English translation: archetype

Login or register (free and only takes a few minutes) to participate in this question.

You will also have access to many other tools and opportunities designed for those who have language-related jobs
(or are passionate about them). Participation is free and the site has a strict confidentiality policy.

14:56 Dec 13, 2008

German to English translations [PRO]
Social Sciences - Philosophy

German term or phrase: Ur-Modelle

I'm translating an article about Plato and other philosophers' concepts of truth and perception - this word occurs in a discussion of Plato's "allegory of the cave". Do we use the term "Ur-models" in English, or is there another generally accepted term? Or shall I paraphrase?

TIA!

"Er [Plato] entwickelte eine Ideenlehre, die u. a. mit dem bekannten Höhlengleichnis anknüpft, in der er sich Ideen als „Ur-Modelle“ bzw. Pläne oder „Backformen“ von Dingen und Handlungen vorstellt.

John Bowden KudoZ activity Questions: 191 (10 open) (12 without valid answers) (4 closed without grading) Answers: 734
Local time: 13:14

English translation:archetype

Explanation:
Archetypes are used in theoretical debates of this kind.

Selected response from:

Semafoor
Belgium
Local time: 14:14

Grading comment

Selected automatically based on peer agreement.
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

Summary of answers provided

4 +4

archetype

Semafoor

3 +1

master forms (concepts)

Bernhard Sulzer

eternal forms

Kim Metzger

Summary of reference entries provided

Plato's Theory of Forms

Helen Shiner

Discussion entries: 1

Answers

6 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +4

archetype

Explanation:
Archetypes are used in theoretical debates of this kind.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archetype

Semafoor
Belgium
Local time: 14:14
Native speaker of:

Dutch
PRO pts in category: 4

Grading comment

Selected automatically based on peer agreement.

13 mins confidence:

eternal forms

Explanation:
I'm not an expert, but this might be the idea.

The intelligible world contains the eternal "Forms" (in Greek, idea ) of things; the visible world is the imperfect and changing manifestation in this world of these unchanging forms. For example, the "Form" or "Idea" of a horse is intelligible, abstract, and applies to all horses; this Form never changes, even though horses vary wildly among themselves—the Form of a horse would never change even if every horse in the world were to vanish. An individual horse is a physical, changing object that can easily cease to be a horse (if, for instance, it's dropped out of a fifty story building); the Form of a horse, or "horseness," never changes. As a physical object, a horse only makes sense in that it can be referred to the "Form" or "Idea" of horseness.

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/PLATO.HTM

Kim Metzger
Mexico
Local time: 07:14
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 33

2 hrs confidence:

peer agreement (net): +1

master forms (concepts)

Explanation:
a few alternatives to archetype for your context which looks at "Urmodell"as a baking form, a dish used to make (fit in/shape accordingly) all forms of the real world.
This form is transcendental, ideal, eternal...

or:

Ur-forms
pre-existing forms (concepts/ templates)
original forms (concet)
(preceding) transcendental forms
pre-forms (still on the transcendental level)

something not invented but always existent.
Like a pre-existing form or model/structure.

Even "master form" - might fit well for your context.

http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/timaeus.htm

That the supreme god of Plato’s cosmos should wear the mask of a manual worker is a triumph of the philosophical imagination over ingrained social prejudice. ... But this divine mechanic is not a drudge. He is an artist or, more precisely, what an artist would have to be in Plato’s conception of art:
not the inventor of new form, but the imposer of pre-existing form on as yet formless material.

http://www.opencroquet.org/index.php/TeaTime_Architecture
master form

Bernhard Sulzer
United States
Local time: 08:14
Works in field
Native speaker of:

German
PRO pts in category: 24

Reference comments

7 hrs

Reference: Plato's Theory of Forms

Reference information:
Plato’s Theory of Forms

The Theory of Forms (also known as the Theory of Ideas) was the centrepiece of Plato’s philosophy. It is essentially the belief that everything on Earth is an inferior copy of an original, supreme and heavenly master-copy. In effect, it amounts to a philosophical counterpart of the popular religious concept of the fallen paradise.

The classic example of the Theory of Forms is the concept of justice. On Earth, there is no single definition of justice, but rather a proliferation of systems which reflect differing human conceptions of what justice should be. Thus the typical Western idea of justice might differ considerably from that of the the Muslims. What then is ‘Justice’ with a capital ‘J’? Did it even exist? According to Socrates and Plato, Justice did exist, but not among the manifold copies of justice which had been invented by races of men here on Earth. Instead, true Justice was to be found in Heaven. It was literally an arche-type – a first type or original form. Hence the name given to this kind of Socratic and Platonic thinking – the Theory of Forms.

The Theory of Forms concept finds its best illustration in Socrates’ story of the Upper Earth which is told in one of Plato’s works, Phaedo. The setting is Socrates’ final hours in an Athenian jail cell, where he entertains a group of visitors which includes two prominent members of the Pythagorean community. As he faces death by drinking hemlock, Socrates shares his vision of what happens to man upon death. The soul, he says, is evidently immortal and experiences a variety of fates on the other side. Whilst the majority of souls go to dwell in the Underworld (either for a while or permanently), a privileged few are allowed to ascend to an upper realm which is called ‘the true Heaven, the true Light and the true Earth’. This Upper Earth, says Socrates, stands in stark contrast to the familiar Earth down here. Everything in it is brighter and purer. The trees are greener, the plants are more beautiful, and the stones and minerals are absolutely perfect. In contrast, the Earth down here is a spoiled and corroded world of ugliness and disease, where even our most precious stones are but crude fragments of the heavenly originals.

In this myth, the Upper Earth (Heaven) symbolises what Platonic scholars like to call ‘the world of Forms’. It literally is a world, albeit a perfect one – the prototype of the world that we know. Hence the idea that it was ‘the true Earth’ which contained the archetypes (the Forms) for everything that existed down here on our own imperfect Earth.

Elsewhere, Socrates and Plato portrayed the ‘world of Forms’ as an invisible sphere, which was the sole unchanging thing in an ever-changing Universe. They referred to it as ‘the realm of what is’ and ‘that which is’. It signified a perfect, invisible Heaven raised above an imperfect, visible Earth.

The Theory of Forms is also fundamental to the book Timaeus in which the Atlantis story is told.

Firstly, the Theory of Forms underlies Plato’s account of the creation of the Universe by the Demiourgos (literally ‘the craftsman’). As Plato put it: “It follows by unquestionable necessity that this Universe is an image of something.” That ‘something’, he said, was the Demiourgos himself, who had fashioned the visible Universe in his own likeness in order that it be perfect, eternal and ever-unchanging. The Demiourgos thus personified the ‘world of Forms’.

Secondly, the Theory of Forms provides the concept of the ideal state, which was the pretext for the telling of the story of Ancient Athens and Atlantis. The idea was that Ancient Athens should symbolise the ideal state acting nobly in war. Hence the story of the war between Athens and Atlantis, the latter symbolising a state that had fallen into decadent ways – the fate of all things that had fallen from the pure Heaven to the impure Earth. Athens, too, would fall into corrupt ways once it had been founded in the Earth.
http://www.eridu.co.uk/Author/atlantis/plato.html

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 7 hrs (2008-12-13 21:59:37 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

So eternal form, pre-existing form, even absolute form or original form might do in my view.

Helen Shiner
United Kingdom
Specializes in field
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 39

Return to KudoZ list

KudoZ™ translation help
The KudoZ network provides a framework for translators and others to assist each other with translations or explanations of terms and short phrases.

Overview

Latest translation questions

Ask a translation question

See also:

ProZ.com term search

Search millions of term translations

Ur-Modelle

English translation: archetype

Login or register (free and only takes a few minutes) to participate in this question.

Answers

Reference comments

Sign in to your ProZ.com account...

Or create a new account

ProZ.com ideas

KudoZ™ translation help
The KudoZ network provides a framework for translators and others to assist each other with translations or explanations of terms and short phrases.

Ur-Modelle

English translation: archetype

Login or register (free and only takes a few minutes) to participate in this question.

Answers

Reference comments

Sign in to your ProZ.com account...

Or create a new account

ProZ.com ideas

KudoZ™ translation helpThe KudoZ network provides a framework for translators and others to assist each other with translations or explanations of terms and short phrases.

KudoZ™ translation help
The KudoZ network provides a framework for translators and others to assist each other with translations or explanations of terms and short phrases.