Alpha and Omega
Bringing together Paul Ricoeur’s On Translation and Peeter Torop’s Total Translation
seems a risky intellectual enterprise, even if its rationale and incongruities are
informatively pointed out by Edward Balcerzan, when he introduces this joint
publication in his foreward entitled Total Translation, or on the Power of Hyperbole.
The French philosopher’s phenomenological search for the true nature of translation is
accompanied by his awareness that fi nding an/the answer is not realistic. His refl ection
on translation does not clarify – it complicates instead. Ricoeur, inspired by Antoine
Berman and George Steiner, urges us to forsake the distinction into the translatable
and the untranslatable; he chooses to consider translation as “linguistic hospitality,”
which allows us to understand our identity in relation to “the other.” Ricoeur’s probing
of the mystery of translation stands in opposition to the systematizing and classifying
work of the Estonian semiotician. Torop’s attempt suffers from the enormity of the
discussed material and lack of precision. Unfortunately, the Polish version is fl awed,
so the presentation of Torop’s argument will profi t from careful re-edition or even
retranslation. Importantly, however, the two thinkers on translation should be presented
separately.

Alpha and Omega
Bringing together Paul Ricoeur’s On Translation and Peeter Torop’s Total Translation
seems a risky intellectual enterprise, even if its rationale and incongruities are
informatively pointed out by Edward Balcerzan, when he introduces this joint
publication in his foreward entitled Total Translation, or on the Power of Hyperbole.
The French philosopher’s phenomenological search for the true nature of translation is
accompanied by his awareness that fi nding an/the answer is not realistic. His refl ection
on translation does not clarify – it complicates instead. Ricoeur, inspired by Antoine
Berman and George Steiner, urges us to forsake the distinction into the translatable
and the untranslatable; he chooses to consider translation as “linguistic hospitality,”
which allows us to understand our identity in relation to “the other.” Ricoeur’s probing
of the mystery of translation stands in opposition to the systematizing and classifying
work of the Estonian semiotician. Torop’s attempt suffers from the enormity of the
discussed material and lack of precision. Unfortunately, the Polish version is fl awed,
so the presentation of Torop’s argument will profi t from careful re-edition or even
retranslation. Importantly, however, the two thinkers on translation should be presented
separately.