1897-1059 Translating philosophical texts: A case study of Charles Taylor’s Modern Social Imaginaries in English-Polish translation Gomola Aleksander author Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowie 03bqmcz70 Correspondence to: Aleksander Gomola a.gomola@uj.edu.pl 14 11 2025 Volume 142, Issue 4 2025 203 213 Copyright © 2025 2025 The paper examines the challenges inherent in translating philosophical discourse, arguing that while specialist knowledge is important, a strong command of both source and target languages, along with an understanding of contrastive grammar and basic translation rules, is equally crucial. The study, preceded by a short overview of relationships between philosophy and translation, analyzes selected translation errors in <em>Nowoczesne imaginaria społeczn</em>e – the Polish version of Charles Taylor’s <em>Modern social imaginaries</em>. It demonstrates that these errors likely stem from a lack of understanding of the original’s syntactical and lexical intricacies, rather than a misinterpretation of Taylor’s philosophical ideas. The analysis highlights such errors as mishandled anaphoric references, incorrect case government, inappropriate word order resulting from interference, and problematic lexical and terminological choices. The paper concludes that successful translation of philosophical texts requires not only solid philosophical knowledge but also thorough linguistic preparation, including detailed knowledge of contrastive grammar and familiarity with translation principles. It emphasizes the need for future training of philosophical translators to focus on developing these linguistic skills, underscoring that subject expertise alone is insufficient without mastery of both source and target languages. The study also stresses the importance of proper editorial oversight and verification in specialist translation. 2 Taylor C. 1989. Sources of the self. The making of the modern identity. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. 3 Taylor C. 2001. Źródła podmiotowości: Narodziny tożsamości nowoczesnej. [transl. by M. Gruszczyński et al.]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN. 4 Taylor C. 2004. Modern social imaginaries. Durham, London: Duke University Press. 5 Taylor C. 2007. A secular age. Cambridge (MA), London: Harvard University Press. 6 Taylor C. 2010. Nowoczesne imaginaria społeczne. [transl. by A. Puchejda, K. Szymaniak]. Kraków: Społeczny Instytut Wydawniczy Znak. 8 Arslan S. 2015. The importance of the basic philosophy teaching within the framework of the translation of philosophical texts in academic translation teaching. – Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 197: 759–765. 9 Barnat D. 2019. Między wiarą a niewiarą. Charles Taylor o kulturze świeckiej świata zachod­niego. Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika. 10 Boase-Beier J. 2019. Benjamin. – Rawling P., Wilson P. (eds.). The Routledge handbook of translation and philosophy. London, New York: Routledge: 76–89. 11 Foran L. (ed.). 2012. Translation and philosophy. Oxford, Bern, Wien: Peter Lang. 12 Foran L. 2019. Gadamer and Ricoeur. – Rawling P., Wilson P. (eds.). The Routledge handbook of translation and philosophy. London, New York: Routledge: 90–103. 13 Hejwowski K. 2004. Translation: A cognitive-communication approach. Olecko: Wydawnictwo Wszechnicy Mazurskiej Acta Universitatis Masuriensis. 14 Hermans T. 2019. Schleiermacher. – Rawling P., Wilson P. (eds.). The Routledge handbook of translation and philosophy. London, New York: Routledge: 17–33. 15 Ingarden R. 1957. Od tłumacza. – Kant I. Krytyka czystego rozumu. [transl. by R. Ingarden]. [vol. 1]. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe: ix–xxiv. 16 Large D. 2014. On the work of philosopher-translators. – Boase-Beier J., Fawcett A., Wilson P. (eds.). Literary translation: Redrawing the boundaries. Houndmills, New York: Palgrave Macmillan: 182–203. 17 Large D. 2019. The translation of philosophical texts. – Rawling P., Wilson P. (eds.). The Routledge handbook of translation and philosophy. London, New York: Routledge: 307–323. 18 Lefevere A. 1992. Translation/history/culture: A sourcebook. London, New York: Routledge. 19 Montefiore A. 2014. Stand (to), stance, standing. – Cassin B. et al. (eds.). Dictionary of untrans­latables: A philosophical lexicon. Princeton (N.J.): Princeton University Press: 1050–1052. 20 Panizza S. 2019. Wittgenstein. – Rawling P., Wilson P. (eds.). The Routledge handbook of translation and philosophy. London, New York: Routledge: 63–75. 21 Roth P. A. 2019. Quine. – Rawling P., Wilson P. (eds.). The Routledge handbook of translation and philosophy. London, New York: Routledge: 104–121. 22 Steiner G. 1975. After Babel. Aspects of language and translation. London, New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 23 Venuti L. 1999. The Scandals of translation. Towards an ethics of difference. London, New York: Routledge.