Abstract The paper perceives western philosophic translation in China on the basis of the theory which western sinologists embodied in philosophic translation. ″Faithfulness″ is the most fundamental principle Chinese scholars hold towards translation. In essence, both ″faithfulness″ advocated by Yan Fu and ″literal translation″ emphasized by Lu Xun represent strong sense of enlightenment, which are with hope to transform Chinese culture. Translation itself is not only to learn and understand western culture, but to shoulder the responsibilities of reforming Chinese culture and to undertake the task of approaching the modernization. If it is claimed that the purpose of Chinese translation since the New Culture Movement is to forge modern Chinese and to enrich means of expression, in terms of Chinese translation at present, the purpose to forge Chinese philosophic expressing via translating western philosophy has been primarily achieved. As for modern Chinese, its western-oriented expression has hampered its articulation, and lost its language beauty, i.e. translation is not beneficial to the aesthetics of Chinese. From the different perspective with the prime directive of Chinese scholars' ″being faithful to the original article″, western sinologists lay much more emphasis on their interpretation of Chinese ideology in the process of translation. With the works of sinologists translated back into Chinese, their translation was put back into the context of Chinese culture, which revealed translation predominantly as an interpretation. Translated Chinese ideological masterpieces, understood by western sinologists, have been marked with western philosophy and they can not be simply regarded as Chinese ideology any more, instead they have become intercultural philosophic products. By discussing the criticism given by German sinologist Stephan Schmidt to Mou Zongsan, this paper points out that in an intercultural context, it is out of the question that translation can not bridge the difference between cultures completely. The identity between the original and the translated articles does not exist, a perfect translation does not exist, and misreading in the translation is inevitable. Hence the key to the problem is whether misreading itself makes sense, i.e. if it l misreading wil produce ″semantic augment.″ Likewise, western philosophy translated into Chinese cannot be merely regarded as western ideology. It should be examined from the context of Chinese ideology. Translation is not only involved with introducing the western to China, but also reconstructing Chinese philosophy and ideology via translation. Judging by this, only those who have profound understanding of Chinese ideology are equipped with the competence to transform ″other″ culture into that of them. Translation, as creative interpretation, can only mature itself on the basis of its complete philosophical view, and can only be established on the ideological creativity in the era. In brief, translation is the initial stage of Chinese to ″accept″ or even ″digest″ western philosophy. Facing such a complicated culture phenomenon of translation, it cannot be simplified as a foreignization translation stand of ″faithfulness″ or ″literal translation.″ Furthermore, in order to make translated western philosophy genuinely a part of Chinese philosophy, ″literal translation″ (foreignization) cannot be treated as unchangeable principle and cannot be put in the opposite side of ″liberal translation″ (domestication translation) in Chinese philosophical translation. To realize the goal of Chinese philosophy, mere reliance on foreignization translation is not advisable. A dimension of domestication translation has to be added at the same time. As a matter of fact, neither absolute foreignization nor domestication is desirable, both of which are difficult to be attained in translation practice. Between the two, necessary tension should be maintained.
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