1. Ludwik Fleck's Legacy – an Example of Self-Translation?
Selbstübersetzung als Wissenstransfer / Self-Translation as Transfer of Knowledge
Ludwik Fleck's Legacy – an Example of Self-Translation?
Paweł Jarnicki
Fundacja ‘Projekt Nauka’ (Wrocław)
Ludwik Fleck Zentrum (Collegium Helveticum at ETHZ)

2. Polish-Jewish microbiologist born in Lwów (1896)
Ludwik Fleck
Polish-Jewish microbiologist
born in Lwów (1896)
died in Ness-Ziona in Israel (1961)
Ludwik Fleck was a Polish-Jewish microbiologist, born in 1896 and educated in multicultural Lwów. During the second world war he was moved to the gettho and then was imprisoned in concentration camps. After the war he lived in Lublin in People’s Republic of Poland. Lublin is nowadays a city on the east of Poland. After 8 years of applying for passports, finally in 1957 communist government allowed him and his wife to emigrate to Israel, where he died in 1961.

3. A book on Weigl and Fleck
(2014)
Subtitle: How two brave scientists battled typhus and sabotaged the Nazis
Just few months ago a book The fantastic laboratory of Dr. Weigl appeared. Its subtitle is How two brave scientists battled typhus and sabotaged the nazis. The book written by an American journalist, Arthur Allen is the only book that in substantive parts is Fleck’s biography.

4. Why Fleck? (1935, Basel) (1962, Chicago)
Fleck was not only microbiologist but also a spare time philosopher of science. Fleck’s book Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache. Einführung in die Lehre vom Denkstil und Denkkollektiv was one of Thomas Samuel Kuhn’s inspirations while writing probably the most popular book of philosophy of science in 20th century – The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In short – Fleck’s ‘thought style’ and Kuhn’s ‘paradigm’ were compared extensively and many agree that ‘thought style’ is better since it refers not only to the sciences.
(1935, Basel)
(1962, Chicago)

5. Fleck’s book (1979, Chicago) (1980, Frankfurt a M.)
Fleck’s book was translated into English in USA, Thomas Kuhn and Robert Merton were involved into that enterprise, the book appeared in 1979 in Chicago. The original was republished in 1980 in Frankfurt am Mein.
(1979, Chicago)
(1980, Frankfurt a M.)

6. But Fleck was a Polish-Jew, he was born in Lwów, the second largest city of the Austrian Partition of the Republic of Poland. Although in the Kingdom of Galicia and Londomeria a part of Austro-Hungarian Empire since in contrast to other partitions - the official language was Polish many intellectuals from Lwów were multilingual – Polish and German at least were their mother tongues.
Lwów

7. philosophical works 2 papers in German one book in German
9 papers in Polish
Ludwik Fleck wrote not only one book and 2 papers in German but also 9 philosophical papers in Polish (few of them are pretty long). There is also one paper published in English after Fleck’s death but it is not important for these considerations. All of the Polish and the German texts are not translations, each of the text is the original one. So, approximately half of Fleck’s philosophical legacy is in German and the other half is in Polish and most of his philosophical texts Fleck was writing in more or less the same time. These 12 texts are my corpus of texts to analysis.
„Philosophical Review”
(the most important philosophical journal in Poland)

8. And almost all of his philosophical texts are translated not only into Polish and German but also into English. The translations were made by different translators and different translators made different decisions. This is not an accident that only the American translation of the book has an index of terms.

9. it is difficult to conduct research on Fleck without the aid of indexes
indexes are impossible to develop because the translations of some terms are inconsistent
to make the terminology consistent we need to conduct research on his theory 1 2 3
Reception of Fleck’s theory of thought styles and thought collectives is problematic: 1) it is difficult to conduct research on Fleck without the aid of indexes; 2) indexes are impossible to develop because the translations of some terms are inconsistent; 3) to make the terminology consistent we need to conduct research on his theory, which leads once again to problem 1). We find ourselves closed in a vicious circle. I thought that a philological analysis of Fleck’s philosophical writings would help to break this circle, an analysis that verifies the translations and compares the use of certain expressions in the Polish and in the German original texts, with the aim of checking which ‘equivalents’ were chosen by Fleck himself. This was the very first idea, but some theoretical problems arise.

10. the theory of thought styles and thought collectives
every theory has to be formulated in a language
in which language is the theory of thought styles and thought collectives formulated?
Although the bibliography of reception of the theory of thought styles and thought collectives only in English comprise over 300 entries, I haven’t heard the question: in which language this theory is formulated? Since Fleck was bilingual we cannot answer which of the languages was the first. The translations were not reviewed since the practice of reviewing translations is still very rare. There are only a few critical remarks on the American translation of the book in Thomas Schnelle’s review of the American edition of it.

11. Cohen/Schnelle glossary (1986)
And there is something more that show that researchers „feel” that there is a problem with this bilingual legacy. 3 glossaries of Fleck’s expressions appeared. The first is the one of Robert Cohen and Thomas Schnelle (published in Cognition and Fact volume).
(…)

12. Graf/Mutter glossary (2006)
The second is the one of Erich Otto Graf and Karl Mutter and the third – the shorter - is the one of Jacek Kołtan. All of these glossaries are important but they differ in character. They are presented in different languages, based on different (and incomplete) corpuses of Fleck’s writings. The largest one is descriptive in character (based on the book and its translation only) while the other two are normative – in short, they are separate and not coherent ventures. Good starting point of more detailed analysis.
(…)

13. Fleck was a philosopher
the case of Fleck
Fleck was bilingual
Fleck was a philosopher
There are described several cases of bilingual literary writers (like, for instance, Samuel Beckett) but it’s hard to find described case of bi- or multilingual philosopher. The case of Ludwik Fleck is different from that of Hannah Arendt, because the latter wasn’t bilingual. And Fleck was.
Samuel Beckett
Hannah Arendt

14. the case of Fleck Fleck did not translate his texts
he wrote in two languages to two target audiences (medical and philosophical)
As far as I know the only described (by Rainer Guldin) case of multilingual philosopher is Vilém Flusser but Flusser used to translate his own texts several times, for instance, from German into Portuguese, and then into English, and then into German again. He was playing with the problem of translation, self-translation and retranslation of his texts. And Fleck didn‘t translate his texts he wrote in two languages to two target audiences (the medical and the philosophical).
Vilém Flusser

15. Fleck was a bilingual philosopher who formulated a theory of thought styles and thought collectives in two languages (Polish and German) simultaneously.
Fleck was a bilingual philosopher who formulated a theory of thought styles and thought collectives in two languages (Polish and German) simultaneously. Some specific problems arise.

16. these expressions „mean the same”
two variants?
German „original”
Polish „original”
Denkstil
Denkkollektiv
styl myślowy
kolektyw myślowy
Here are the most important Fleck’s expressions. I haven’t heard anybody to have doubts that they mean the same. ‘Denkstil’ and ‘styl myślowy’ are equivalents – but I suggest that they are not two originals but two variants. But if they are two variants - where is the original? Ok., these two examples are not problematic they mean the same according to the dictionaries. And they are consistently translated into third English language as ‘thought style’ or ‘style of thought’. The problem appears when we are going a bit lower. [(Some claim that in English it would be better to use the gerund – ‘thinking’ but the Polish expression is not so „active”).]
these expressions „mean the same”

17. Fleck about ‘communication’
English translations:
51 derivatives of ‘communication’
only 2 derivatives of ‘komunikacja’ in Polish texts; 0 in German
My project is „Philological analysis of Ludwik Fleck’s philosophical writings and its translations in Polish, German and English” and I’m talking to you in English, that’s why I shall begin with the English expressions. The fact that Fleck used derivatives of ‘communication’ in his Polish texts only two times may come something of a surprise to readers of Fleck in English, as the English translations of Fleck’s philosophical writings contain fifty-one references to ‘communication’ or its derivatives.

18. porozumieć się (15) verkehren (23) communication
What seems interesting - English ‘communication’ comes from one side from Polish verb ‘porozumieć się’ and its derivatives and from the other side from German ‘verkehren’ and its derivatives.
communication

19. translations from Polish
Polish word
form/aspect
meaning, in English
„porozumieć się”
verb - perfective ascpect
1) ‘come to an understanding ‘/ ‘agree‘ and 2) ‘be in contact’
„porozumiewać się”
verb - imperfective aspect
‘be in contact (by means of sth)’
„porozumienie”
verbal noun – from perfective ascpect
‘unanimity’, ‘understanding’ or ‘agreement’,
„porozumiewanie”
verbal noun – from imperfective aspect
‘the process of being in contact ‘
Translations from Polish loose the differences of meanings. In Polish there is perfective and imperfective aspect of a verb and from both forms verbal nouns are possible, and the latter are also lexicalized, Polish expressions mean ‘come to an understanding’, ‘agree’, ‘be in contact’ and ‘unanimity’, ‘understanding’, ‘agreement’, ‘the process of being in contact’ – all of these are just ‘communication’ in English but this is not a problem of self-translation.

20. translations from German
German original
English translation
Denkverkehr
communication of thought(s)
Gedankenverkehr
communication of ideas
Translations from German are a bit different, since they are translations of compositions – of ‘Denk-’ or ‘Gedankenverkehr’: it is ‘communication of thoughts’ or ‘ideas’.

21. German (translation and original)
Denkverkehr
Gedankenverkehr
Gedankenaustausch
Wandern eines Gedankens
Gedanken-Kreislauf
Gedankenwechsel
But if we treat German originals and translations as a corpus we will find more similar expressions: ‘Gedankenaustausch’, ‘Wandern eines Gedankens’, ‘Gedanken-Kreislauf’, ‘Gedankenwechsel’.

22. a method
Identify the most important expressions of the theory of thought styles and thought collectives (beginning with the glossaries and papers on Fleck’s theory).
Create a list of synonymous expressions of certain concepts and translations of these expressions.
Identify the most frequently used attributives, adverbials etc., their translations and contexts as well as the frequency of use of certain expressions.
Compare the results and formulate (if possible) normative recommendations and justifications.
Due to these problems and due to the fact that I have to deal with a corpus of texts in 3 languages I decided to systematize my research. [read the slide] Previous slide is such an list of synonymous expressions but only in German.

23. translations from German
German original
Denkverkehr
Gedankenverkehr
Gedankenaustausch
Wandern eines Gedankens
English translation
communication of thought(s)
communication of ideas
exchange of thought(s) / ideas
migration / passage of ideas
‘Gedankenaustausch’ and ‘Wandern eines Gedankens’ are expressions from German original texts and they are translated respectively as ‘exchange of thought’ and ‘migration’ or ‘passage of ideas’.

24. inventions of translators
Gedanken-Kreislauf
Gedankenwechsel
And these two expressions turned out to be inventions of translators, we can’t find them in German original texts.

25. Translations from Polish
Polish original
krążenie myśli
wędrówka myśli
wymiana myśli
English translation
circulation of thought
migration / perigrinations of thought(s)
exchange of thought(s) / ideas
Here are the Polish original expressions and its English translations.

26. „counter-invention” of translators
German original
Polish translation
Gedankenaustausch
wymiana myśli
Gedankenverkehr
Denkverkehr
The situation in Polish is opposite to the one in German, as in German translators invented new expressions, in Polish there id one expression corresponding with 3 German expressions.

27. German expression and translation Polish expression and translation
English translation
Verkehr
krążenie
circulation
Wandern
wędrówka
wandering
Austausch
wymiana
interchange
communication of thoughts
circulation of thoughts
‘Gedanken-Kreislauf’ is translation of Polish ‘krążenie myśli’ and there is no ‘Denkverkehr’ in German translations of the Polish papers. The analysis of frequency and stable attributives shows that these two expressions - ‘Denkverkehr’ and ‘krążenie myśli’ relate to the very same concept of Fleck. So ‘communication of thoughts’ and ‘circulation of thoughts’ should mean the same.
Gedanken-Kreislauf

28. glossary – ‘communication’
German expression and translation
Polish expression and translation
English translation
Verkehr
krążenie
circulation
Wandern
wędrówka
wandering
Austausch
wymiana
interchange
Verständigung / ???
porozumienie
unanimity / agreement / understanding / beeing in contact
porozumiewanie
Kommunikation
komunikacja
communication
My current research shows that if we want to make the translations of Fleck coherent we should develop a glossary in the way I’ve just described and define a groups of expressions, for instance, a group relating to that what we call ‘communication’ today and what Fleck called ‘circulation’, ‘wandering, or ‘interchange of thoughts’, ‘agreement’ or ‘being in contact’.

29. thought – the level of equivalence
Denk-
Denk-
Denk-
myśl
myśl
myśl
myśl
Denk-
myśl
Denk-
Denk-
To do that we have to assume that words such ‘Verkehr’ and ‘krążenie’ – despite the differences of their lexical meaning – „mean the same”. They are two variants of the same concept of Fleck which he expressed, or self-translated into two languages. It means that we have to assume that the level of equivalence is the level of thought what seems quite Fleckian due to the multiplicity of his expressions derived from thought (Denken, myśl)
Denk-
Denk-
Denk-
myśl
Denk-
Denk-
Denk-
myśl

30. Thank you for your attention!
Thank you for your attention. Since I’m philologist and not an expert of self-translation I would be grateful for any critical remarks and suggestions.
This work is supported by the National Science Centre (Poland) under Grant number
DEC-2012/06/M/HS2/00313