Exploration On The Disputing History About The Translative Names Of Kant's "Transcendental" In China

"A priori", "transcendental" and "transcendent" belong to the most important concepts in Western Philosophy. Especially when Kant distingished "transcendental" from "transcendent" and decalared that his philosophy is a kind of transcendental philosophy, the importance of "transcendental" became more prominent. Later, many philosophical ideas stem from Kant's transcendental theory, hence the whole western philosophy can be called transcendental philosophy in some sense. Yet the philosophers always hold different views about "transcendental". The misunderstandings about "transcendental" often comes from two aspects:on the one hand, people would confuse "transcendental" with "a priori"; on the other hand, people would confuse "transcendental" with "transcendent". Therefore, the disputes about "transcendental" never ceases.As there are great differences between western languages and Chinese language, and great differences between western philosophical ideas and Chinese philosophical ideas, the contradiction in the translation of conceptional words becme more consicuous, and the disputes about "a priori", "transcendental" and "transcendent" transform into the disputes on the the selection of the Chinese translative names for them. Throughout Chinese history of the reception and research of Kant's philosophy in the past hundred years, different scholoars hold different views on the understanding and translative names for these conceptional words. According to my statistics, more than 10 different Chinese translative names have been created for "a priori" and "transcendent" respectively; and even more than 24 Chinese translative names for "transcendental". Definitely, so many different Chinese names for these conceptional words caused a great chaos in the academic communication. The cry for single translative names for these conceptional words can be heard more loudly. Hence it is necessary to explore the developing history of these conceptional words in western philosophy, moreover it is necessary to explore their reception history and translating history in China. Based on these explorations, people would get some valuable references for the future translation of conceptional words.In the early times, the Japanese often translated the western conceptional words into chinese Characters instead of coining a new Japanese Characters. During 19th-20th century, Chinese fell behind Japanese in the recption of western knowledge, and Chinese scholars always copied Japanese translative names for the convenience in academic communication. As a result, we can still find a number of words coming from Japanese language. As a translative name for "a priori", "xiantian" orignated from Japanese philosophers Nishi Amane, who selected it from the ancient words in Chinese Classical Book named as Yi. As translative names for "transcendental" and "transcendent", "xianyande" and "chaoyande" neither orignated from Chinese philosopher Lan Gongwu nor from Japanese philosophersあまの·ていゆうbut originated from another Japanese philosopher Sangmuyanyi in a earlier time. The two Japanese philosophers created these translative names via to the translating ways formed in the early translation of Netherlandish classicals.During 1920s to 1930s, "xiantian", "xianyande" and "chaoyande" bacame the set translative names for "a priori", "transcendental" and "transcendent" in Japanese. However, different views about these translative names always existed. Under the influence of Heidegger's thoughts, Japanese philosopherくき·しゆうぞう) who once studied in Europe proposed to translate "transcendental" into "chaoyuelunde" and translate "transcendent" into "chaoyuede". His proposal did not become popular until 1970s when people became much more interested in "transcendenz" philosophical issues. And eventually "chaoyuelunde" and "chaoyuede" replaced "xianyande" and "chaoyande" as the set translative names for "transcendental" and "transcendent" in Japan.Since Kant's thoughts landed in China at the beginning of 20th century, the academic researches on Kant's philosophical ideas became wax and wane several times. Before 1920s, piece by piece, people touched Kant's ideas via to the introduction made by Japanese philosophers first, not by Germany philosophers. In memory of Kant's 200th birthday, the No.5 Issue in Vol.6 of Xueyi Magazine and the No.4 Issue in Vol.6 of Minduo Magazine published a series of memorial papers only on Kant, bringing the research and memorial activities into climax, however most of these memorial papers adopted current Japanese translative names at that time.Before 1930, it almost became an academic custom to adopt the Japanese translative names directly. In 1930s, in order to struggle for an independent academic research, such scholars of insight as He Lin, Zhang Dong-sun and Yu You-sun proposed to correct the Japanese translative names publicly and to get rid of the custom of copying the Japanese translative names. During that period, Such schololars as Xiong Wei, Zheng Xin, He Lin and Zhang Dongsun published a series of papers to discuss the meaning of such conceptional words as "transcendental" and and so on in Kant's philosophy. It is the first time when the discussion on how to translate Kant's conceptional words into Chinese became heated in China.In addition to publish academic papers on the magazines, some scholars (such as Fan Shou-kang) began to wrote books about Kant, some scholars bagan to translate Kant's works. Hu Ren-yuan was the first man who translated The Critique of Pure Reason into Chinese in 1931. Two years later, Lan Gongwu began to translate The Critique of Pure Reason into Chinese too, he finished the translation in 1935, yet he got his works published until 1957. Among the six Chinese version of The Critique of Pure Reason, Lan Gongwu's works had the most readers for a long time. In fact, Lan Gongwu once studied in Japan and good at Japanese. He borrowed a number of translative names from the Japanese philosopherあまの·ていゆうwho translated The Critique of Pure Reason into Japanese in 1921. Although the following translators—Wei Zhuo-min, Deng Xiao-mang and Li Qiu-ling disagreed with Lan Gongwu on some translative names, they still adopted most of his translative names. Therefore, the translative names among Lan Gongwu's works became the set translative names, they eventually became jargons when people discuss Kant's thoughts.In recent twenty years, being neglected for a long period, academic researches on Kant become flourish again. A number of articles on the tranlative names for Kant's conceptional words appeared in the books and magazines, especially the discussion on "transcendental" and its translative names became more conspicuous. Among the discussions, the most significant events such as Sun Zhou-xing opposed to Wang Bing-wen's proposal to translate "transcendental" into "chaoyulunde", Deng Xiao-mang refuted Mou Zong-san's argument of "chaoyue" in Chinese Philosophy, and the disputes between Ni Liang-kang and Zhao Ting-yang, made the discussion burst into flame. It is the second time when the discussion on how to translate Kant's conceptional words into Chinese became heated again among Chinese scholars. Whether translate "transcendental" into "chaoyulunde" or not became the focus of the heated discussion.The disputes about the translative names for such conceptional words as "transcendental" continued throughout the reception history of Kant's philosophy in China. The rooted causes for many divergent opinions lies in the different nature existing between western languages and Chinese language, the great differences existing between western thoughts and Chinese thoghts. At first, some western concepts virtually miss in Chinese thoughts, and vice versa; moreover, one concept usually interlinks with some others. Consequently, most conceptional words are untranslable. Secondly, different philosophers have different understandings about the same philosophical concept, and they may endow the same concept with some specific meanings. For example, "transcendental" in Kant's philosophy, Husserl's philosophy, Heidegger's philosophy, and Wittgenstein's philosophy, mean different philosophical ideas. Even for the same "transcendental" in Kant's philosophy, different researchers may have different understandings. In addition, they may choose different words among a group of synonyms in mother tongue to express the same understanding because different people have different language awareness. All of these set more obstacles for the translation of conceptional words. Thirdly, as dictionaries demonstrate, the words in western languages usually have more than one meaning, some even have more than ten meanings according to different contexts. And the same thing can be encountered in Chinese language too. Therefore, it is extremly difficult to find a well-matched Chinese word for a western conceptional word.Given these conditions, how can we solve the problem of so many divergent opinions in the translation of western conceptional words? Kripke's Causal-Historical Naming Theory may provide some useful inspiration if we make an analogy between them. To some degree, the translation of western conceptional words is to rename them in the target language. The relation between name and object is established on the naming ceremony; and the relation between the translative name and the conceptional word is established by one specific translator, too. After that, the name or the translative name does not change any longer, while its connotation becomes richer and richer as we know more about the object or the conceptional word, and gradually we endow the name or translative name(e.g. Churchill, transcendental, Marxism) with more connotation. As some necessities exist between name and object, so it is necessary to take it into full consideration of the necessities between the translative name and the conceptional word.