ABSTRACT
The emphasis on the situatedness of thought is one of the main achievements of philosophical hermeneutics, which is rooted in a Hegelian tradition. Deliberative translation’s conception of the historical identity of the thinking subject and its insistence on the relation of history to thought is the concern of philosophical hermeneutics. The vision of deliberative translation as the only mode of ‘genuine thought’ ceases to persuade. The formula thought/translation entails both overcoming the abstraction and recognising the danger of falling into it again. In the first stage, the dialectical concept of translation—understood as the negative, the tension, or the inner gap within modern thought—was mistakenly defined as something substantial. To the extent that translating Hegel and Kant is necessary for making Ibn Sina and Hafez accessible to us Iranians, European philosophical texts stand in need of interpretation that reaches well beyond merely verbal translation.
