Studia Phaenomenologica

Volume 5, 2005

Translating Heidegger's Sein und Zeit

Heidegger ins Japanische übersetzen

In this article, the author begins by noticing a statistical fact: from the seven Japanese translations of Being and Time, in five cases the German word Sein has been translated as sonzai, and in two cases as u. This fact invites the author to a discussion about the Japanese understanding of “Being”, which is developed on three levels: the question of language, the question of historical-cultural world, and the question of the “European”, understood as a Western principle, depicting this “Abend-land” as a region threatened by night.