Ihor Burkovskyi

The article continues the previous two published in the journal “Philosophy of Education” 27(1) and 27(2), which refuted certain biased accusations against the Ukrainian translations of Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” (2000) and “Critique of Practical Reason” (2004). Now the author aims to demonstrate the level of these translations by numerous comparisons of their fragments with corresponding passages edited or independently translated by some Ukrainian Kant-scholars, including two participants in the previous discussion. The selected samples include mainly quotes, which have some significant differences from the text of the mentioned editions – either for better or for worse. In addition to quotations, the comparisons include fragments of Kant’s text, repeated in some sources by the author himself or his reviewer, and reproduced in Ukrainian by different translators. The study shows that alternative translations of fragments of Kant’s works are mostly inferior to the discussed Ukrainian editions in terms of their level, and interventions in the text of the latter when quoting improve it only to a small extent, but in the vast majority they are not justified and have a subjective nature. There are no obvious signs of an excessively high frequency of errors, in any case serious, in the Ukrainian translations of the first two “Critics”. This points in favor of a satisfactory rating for them, although there is an undeniable need to reissue them with corrections and other improvements. The samples of alternative translations and quoting of Kant (sometimes the context of the quotations is also discussed) here act as an indicator of the state of modern Ukrainian Kant studies and related areas, prompting certain conclusions.

The article deals with the review of the Ukrainian translation of "Critique of Pure Reason" from the previous issue of the magazine. The publication of I. Ivashchenko and V. Terletsky tries to prove the thesis of unsatisfactory quality of translation – the article proves the failure of this attempt. It is shown that most of the reviewers' remarks are untenable, and, most importantly, the presented material is highly insufficient to prove their thesis. Unsatisfactory text quality means not just the presence of errors in it, but their high frequency. For an expansive text, a demonstration on a representative sample is required – there is nothing similar in the review. Some of its remarks are terminological, which may mean high-frequency errors, due to the repetition of certain terms, but in fact the valid points of those remarks are to point out a few omissions and variability in the translation of some less important terms. The review states that the terms should be translated "everywhere in the same way", while the use of a synonym causes, and inevitably, "the destruction of the structure of the argument". The first assertion is applicable with limitations, especially in the case of CPR, which is not characterized by terminological scrupulousness, and the second is a great exaggeration. The reviewers did not demonstrate any such grave consequences of the synonymy of the terms. In fact, the review proves only that there are flaws in the translation – but this is natural, they are in any translation, in the Ukrainian one they were additionally caused by the unfavorable conditions in which it was made. To neutralize these errors, it is to develop and distribute a list of amendments to the text.

The paper deals with the review of the translation of Kant’s “Critique of Practical Reason”, published by Vitaly Chorny in this magazine last year as a continuation of the review by I. Ivashchenko and V. Terletsky which is scrutinized in the previous issue. The new review turned to be a similar attempt to prove a biased statement about the unsatisfactory quality of Ukrainian translation. It is shown that this attempt is even more unsuccessful than the previous one: it is characterized by a much lower level of professionalism and significant illogicality. The vast majority of its claims to translation are proven to be again insolvent or insignificant, i. e. in both cases they are only imitations of proof of its pretended unsuitability. The cardinal flaw of the review, as well as the previous one, is the lack of any appropriate method of translation evaluation. The reviewer tries to compensate for the weakness of the argument by sharp rhetoric, unrestrained exaggerations, such as “terminological chaos”. The justification of the last verdict is unsuccessful: in fact only a few translation omissions and some minor shortcomings are given. In the same way, the allegations of a large number of gross translation errors due to the translator's incompetence remained unproven, excepting adduction of a few real flaws due to oversight. In fact, the review, like the previous one, proves only that the translation, as any other one, is not error-free. In addition to the obvious damage, there is some benefit from it, namely a modest contribution to the list of corrections to the translation.