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Description:
On the occasion of the recent Arabic translation of Ludwig Wittgenstein's seminal Philosophische Untersuchungen from the German, the workshop aims to explore the philosophical problematics that arise in reading, thinking and debating Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations in translation. Taking as our point of departure Wittgenstein's assertion that "the meaning of a word is its use in the language" [PI 1:43] and that "translating from one language into another" is a language-game and, hence, governed by rules [PI 1:23], the workshop aims to reflect on the interpretative potentiality of the Arabic rendering of Wittgenstein's monumental work. We seek to understand how the translation of his theories on language, signification and understanding can be creatively read against the backdrop of the rich, diverse and sophisticated Arabic traditions of grammar, logic, philosophy and semantics. Emphasizing Wittgenstein's fundamental argument on the impossibility and irrelevance of defining words out of their "forms of life", the translation of the German original into Arabic introduces the possibility of a Wittgensteinian perspective on the translation of philosophical texts across linguistic and cultural realms. The workshop brings together a group of contemporary Arab philosophers and linguists, including the translator himself, to dwell on the problematics of philosophical translation, reception and readability.

Papers were presented primarily in Arabic, and discussed in Arabic, English and French.

Photos: Abderrazak Bannour, Saeko Shibayama