La potencialidad de la traición hermenéutica

Two translations of Paul Ricoeur´s Temps et Récit —published in 1984— have been made in Spanish. The first one was published in 1987 by Ediciones Cristiandad in Spain and, the second one, in 1995 by Ediciones Siglo XXI in Mexico. In both cases, the Argentine Agustín Neira Calvo was the translator. However, his work presents some difficulties in the way he transfers some thematic concepts to Spanish —those around which the thought of an author is concentrated (mainly muthos and mimesis in the case of Ricoeur)— and other operational and second range- concepts, relevant in the field of uncertainty and time, which specify and guide the ricoeurian thought. The French term “mise en intrigue” is a central concept that Ricoeur takes from Aristotle and was translated by Neira as “construcción de la trama”. The translation of the French word “intrigue” as “trama” updates an ancient conflict: how to translate the Greek word “muthos”. Ricoeur directly examines this problem in the second chapter of Temps et Récit, when he analyses the French translation of Aristotle´s Poetics made by R. Dupont-Roc and J. Hardy in 1980. There is no doubt that the translation of “intrigue” as “trama” has influenced the reception and the introduction of Ricoeur´s work in Latin America and Spain. The determination of its influence has spread through certain concepts as “amont” and “avant” that are fundamental to the relationship Ricoeur establishes among mimesis I, II and III. Neira translates them with the temporal prepositions “antes” and “después” and his choice helps emphasize the temporal nature of the mimesis process and it determines the interpretation of certain key passages in the rest of Ricoeur´s work. From this empirical situation in the translation of Ricoeur´s text to Spanish, we will analyse the relationship between translation and hermeneutics. Since Hans-Georg Gadamer and Ricoeur, the philosophical and universal aspiration of hermeneutics —based on the universality of the text as a model of the being in general— has transformed translation into a paradigm for understanding. In this sense, we will examine why it is not a coincidence that both thinkers chose Aristotle´s Poetics as their interlocutor.