Chapter 22 Some Notes on Versions and Translations

Although Pascal had a great influence after his death, the book "Thoughts" has not been well organized for a long time, and it appears to be disorganized; It is impossible for people to read and understand the content and ideas of "Silu" well.It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that the posthumous works of this mid-seventeenth century thinker were gradually restored to their original appearance and presented to readers. Shortly after his death, his niece Etienne Perier compiled fragmentary drafts of this unfinished tome.The edited draft was published in 1670 after being edited and edited by the Port Royal Monastery, the center of the Jansen School, especially some parts that were too heretical and too exposed; this is the "Thoughts" The earliest version, commonly known as Poro Yarben.In fact, this earliest version is quite different from the original appearance of the author's original work, and the bamboo slips are disordered, making it difficult to read.

Since the advent of Paulo Alban, Pascal has been studied in successive dynasties, including Voltaire (Voltaire, 1694-1778), Condorcet (Condorcet, 1743-1794), Chateaubriand (1768-18 48) among other famous figures.There have also been different versions published in the past, such as the Condorcet version in 1776, the Bo-ssut version in 1779, and the Le  Eevre version in 1819, but none of them is close to the original appearance. of. It was not until Erantin in 1835 and Cousin in 1842 that he began to attempt to restore the order of the books according to the author's original idea; A version that roughly corresponds to the state of the manuscript of the original book.Since then, various editions have been continuously revised on the basis of Freben. They are:

1851 Havet, 1854 Louandre, 1857 Astie Ben, Lahure 1858, Rocher 1873, Mollinier 1877, Drioux 1881, Jeannin 1883 , Vialard 1895, Michaud 1896, Didiot 1897, Brunschvicg 1904, Gazier 1907 Ben, 1911 Margival Ben, 1 925 Massis, 1931 Strowski, 1933 Souriau This, Dedieu's 1937, Chevalier's 1949, Stewart's 1950, and Chevalier's Complete Works of Pascal in 1957. Foge, Avey, Molinier, Michaud, and Brunsweig have all made special research and annotations on Pascal; among them, Brunsweig's book came out later and is generally recognized as the best Version.In addition, Sainte-Beuve (1888), Strowski, Soltau, Boutroux, and Criand are also famous for their research on Pascal.Regarding Pascal's life, the "Pascal's Biography" written by his sister Mrs. Birière for Porojalben has left valuable original materials for later generations.Regarding the history of Boroyal, St. Bofu's "History of Boroyal" (1842-1848) is still a detailed study so far, and there are some unique insights on Pascal's comments, although the author flaunts objectivism.For a detailed bibliography of Pascal, please refer to "Pascal's Books" edited by A. Maire and J. Giraud's "French Literature Bibliography in the Sixteenth, Seventh, and Eighth Centuries" (page 148- 161).For a more concise bibliography, see J. Mesnard

Appendix to The Life and Works of Pascal (English translation. New York, 1952. pp. 202-208). The translation is based on the original text of the revised sixth edition of Brunchweig's "Pascal's Thoughts and Selected Works" (Paris Hachette Edition, 1912).Although the Brunsweig edition is known as a refined review, it also has mistakes, even very obvious mistakes, especially in the annotations and quotations, and there are also some in the text; bright.The translation and annotations also refer to "Pascal's Complete Works" edited by Chevalier (Paris, GalliHmard edition 1957).The compilation of this book is quite different from that of Brunswick, and some places draw on recent research results.Pascal's book is originally a fragment of an unfinished draft, so the writing is often too brief, and many places are not even complete sentences, which makes researchers all the time confused; due to my limited level, my mistakes are even more serious Inevitably, I hope to get corrections from readers.

In the process of translation, I referred to W. Trotter's English translation, and partly referred to Hesse's (H. Hesse) German translation (Leipzig, P. Reclam edition).The English translation has Trotter, Rawlings (G.B. Rawlings) And Warrington (J.Warrington) three kinds, "Everyone Series", "Modern Books" and "Harvard Classics Series" The three "Collections of Thoughts" in this book all use Trott's English translation.Although this English translation is not bad, it has a lot of mistakes, and there are entire paragraphs and sentences missing, and the order is reversed and confused is not uncommon.Wherever the Brunswick version is wrong, whether it is the text or the annotations, the Trott English translation mostly inherits and passes on falsehoods; where the Brunswick version was originally good, the Trott English translation also makes many mistakes. It is a very ridiculous mistake, such as making Pascal's friend Miton (Miton) into the British poet Milton (see "Everyone Series No. 874")

192, 1931) and the like, which make people laugh and cry. Any typos or omissions in the author's original text that have been corrected by later generations are marked in square brackets.As for some incomplete sentences in the book, except for those whose meanings have been confirmed by later generations, the rest are translated word by word according to the original text, so as not to damage the original meaning. The most difficult thing in translating any ideological work is the difficulty in unifying nouns and terms.Although we try our best to make important nouns and terms consistent during the translation process, sometimes we still have to use several different Chinese characters to represent the same word in the original text, or even key words in the original text.On the other hand, although most of the nouns take care of the consistency of the translated names before and after, it is impossible for this consistency not to deviate from the original meaning more or less under different usage occasions.

The difficulty is that no script can exactly match and express another script. In Chinese, nature, human nature, nature and the adjectives derived from them are natural, natural, and endowed. In the original text, it is the same word nature and its adjective na-turel; but we use it differently in different occasions. corresponding words.Members, constituent parts and body in Chinese are also the same word membre in the original text, this word translates member in the country, constituent part in the whole, and body in the individual. The word Esprit is translated as spirit throughout the book.This word is roughly equivalent to spi-rit in English, Geist in German, and spirit, heart, mind or mind in Chinese. In the first part of this book, this word actually refers to the way of thinking.The difference between the so-called geometric spirit and sensitive spirit or "subtle spirit" in the English translation is "intuitive spirit", which refers to the difference between the geometric thinking mode and the sensitive thinking mode.

The word esprit had a much more subtle connotation in the seventeenth and eighth centuries than what we mean by "spirit" today. A word cannot be unaffected by the influence of the times and constantly change its own quality and weight.Another word in a similar situation is philosophe, which in the seventeenth and eighth centuries had a somewhat different meaning from what we call a philosopher today, in that it meant something different from a metaphysician—and "metaphysics "This word has a different meaning from what we have today-a knowledge seeker.It is almost impossible to use one language to express the content of another language under different time, place and conditions; therefore, we can only hope that the readers will understand the spirit of the language and achieve the purpose of rebelling against one's will. Don't use words to harm meaning.

Another key word is raison.Raison in the seventeenth century can be equivalent to Verstand in the eighteenth century (or understanding in English: reason, intellect, understanding, comprehension), and it can also be equivalent to Vernunet in the eighteenth century (or rea-son in English, rationality in Chinese). ).Here we must note that, neither in Pascal himself nor in the thought of the seventeenth century as a whole, Verstand and Vernunet have not acquired the distinction which they later ascribed in Kant.In Pascal’s usage, this word refers to reasoning ability, intellect, reason or rationality respectively. We mostly translate it as “reason” in the book, and translate it as “reason” or “reason” on a few occasions.Of course, the German translation can also translate it as Vernunet, as long as the word is not understood in the strict meaning it acquired in German classical philosophy a century and a half later.Strictly speaking, what is closer to Vernunet should be pensee (thought) in Pascal's terminology.Pascal's use of the word pensee is roughly equivalent to Descartes' use of cogitatio (thought, the word "thinking" in "I think, therefore I am").Descartes said: "What I call thought (co-gitatio) is that we are aware of all that is active in our own mind. That is why not only understanding, will, imagination but also emotion are here It's the same thing as thinking."Descartes' "thought" includes three aspects of knowledge, emotion and intention, and Pascal's "thought" also includes three aspects of knowledge, emotion and intention.

It can be said that the "thought" of Descartes and Pascal corresponds roughly to Vernunet, and the "reason" roughly corresponds to Verstand.Kant's formulation is: "All mental abilities or energies can be attributed to the following three types that cannot be further extended from a common standpoint, namely, cognitive abilities, likes and dislikes, and desire abilities."Pascal's proposition is: "The mind has its own reason (reason), which the reason does not know."Pascal's "mind" or "thought" is close to Kant's "psychic ability" that is reason, and Pascal's reason is close to Kant's cognitive ability.There is something the intellect cannot know, but this it knows by itself.This form of reasoning, like Kant's pure reason, is the legislator of its own faculties of cognition; there is nothing to be said of a "paradox" in it, as Wendelband denounces.

Some characters are equivalent to more than one meaning in Chinese, and sometimes we only use one translated name.For example, the word lumiere is both light and knowledge, especially for some rationalists, intellectual knowledge is inherent light; most of us use "light" instead of "knowledge" in the book.Other words have both literal and substantive meanings; in this case, the translations mostly adopt their substantive meanings.For example, l'esprit de enesse should literally be "spirit of subtlety", and we use "spirit of sensitivity" to correspond to "spirit of geometry"; Lang is the founder of skepticism), and the translation is called skepticism. The transliteration of names mostly adopts common ones, so some names do not use the Latin "us" suffix; such as Virgilius, we use the more popular Wei Jier instead of Wei Gilius.The spelling of proper nouns in French is different from that in Latin or English. The Chinese translation of some names is generally based on Latin or English. In this case, we do not take the French as the standard.As Celsus we base not on the French form Celse, but on the more common Latin and English form Celsus; likewise, Athanasius bases on Athanasius, not on the French form Athanase. As for the translation of religion chretienne as Christianity instead of Christianity, the reason is that Christianity is not only more in line with the original text, but also more in line with the original meaning. It marks Pascal’s transition from the medieval full-divine religion to the modern semi-divine and semi-human religion.