Between fidelity and elegance: Miquel Montserrat, translator of Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason”

This article analyzes the first complete Catalan translation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Miquel Montserrat (2024). Through a multilingual comparative analysis involving translations into Latin, Spanish, Italian, French and English, we examine the translation methods employed and evaluate Montserrat’s “moderate foreignizing” approach. The study focuses on four key aspects: common vocabulary, philosophical terminology, the syntax of Kantian hypotactic periods, and the treatment of terminological doublets. The translation’s strengths include the elegant preservation of Kantian syntactic structures and the innovative strategy of marking terminological doublets with angle brackets (⸢reality⸣), a solution unprecedented in Romance languages. The primary limitations concern certain common vocabulary choices that are unfamiliar in contemporary Catalan. The article suggests non-normative lexical amendments for future editions, following the spirit of the translator himself, who has been open to corrections. Montserrat’s translation represents a landmark achievement that raises the profile of Catalan on the world map of Kantian translations and constitutes an indispensable tool for philosophical research and teaching in this language.