Cognition and Comprehension in Translational Hermeneutics

2021

Cognition and Comprehension in Translational Hermeneutics

Der Evidentia-Begriff in seinen rhetorisch-translatologischen Dimensionen. Ein Denkanstoß von Fritz Paepcke

Evidentia is a concept passed on to us from rhetoric – more precisely from the third of the five canons of classical rhetoric, namely elocution. The goal of this canon is to achieve a stylistic quality that enables the listener to see what (s)he hears with his or her inner eye, i.e. to enable the listener to really visualize what is being said. Fritz Paepcke – whose one hundredth birthday we celebrated at this conference – applied the concept of evidentia to the field of translation studies. Within his conceptual framework, he portrayed it as a new experience – one which arises immediately, i.e., not through induction or deduction, but “as a result of the rule-governed and yet playful process of developing the most adequate wording of a translation” and from one’s interaction with the text. Paepcke did not, however, elaborate on this “intuition of intuition.” This article attempts to further develop the concept evidentia rhetorically and philosophically and to apply it to the field of translation studies. Two conceptions are particularly instrumental here: 1) The concept of fidélité créatrice as elucidated by the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel – to whom Paepcke often referred – as well as 2) the conceptual approach underlying and informing the research center Hermeneutik und Kreativität. In the latter, the processes of understanding and translating / translating and understanding are conceived of as being bi-directional and interdependent; this conception, which fuses understanding with empathy, is making new, significant inroads into translation studies. The notion of evidentia will be exemplified here using an empathetic Italian translation of a very young poet – Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger.