ABSTRACT
Chapter 7 begins with a comparison of different versions of a significant passage from Hegel’s Science of Logic, illustrating the interweaving of Miller’s subtle, textual reframing strategies in his 1969 retranslation with the surrounding socio-narrative context. Miller asserts his legitimacy as a translator by faithfully restoring Hegel’s textual emphasis, thereby dissociating the retranslation from the loose paraphrase of its 1929 British-Idealist predecessor. He re-focalises the Hegelian “we,” addressing a new readership generation but resisting the temptation to popularise Hegel. For Miller, the translatorial “we” thus includes a select group of serious-minded readers but excludes those looking for easy answers to difficult questions. This strategy is performative of a situated, gender-specific intellectual role, which was increasingly contested in contemporary public narratives of liberalisation and permissiveness. The chapter concludes by contrasting Miller’s approach in the Science of Logic (1969) with divergent reframing strategies in his later retranslation of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (1977). Miller’s deliberate and creative use of terminological inconsistency in the translation of aufheben/sublate, which he had translated consistently in the Science of Logic, “fences” this work off from Hegel’s mature works, framing it as exploratory, tentative, the product of a less experienced Hegel.
