ABSTRACT
Medieval literary cultures were nurtured by translations from other languages. Particularly, medieval European philosophy is rooted on translations of theoretical and practical texts from Greek and Arabic. These translations can be considered as “objects of experience” that are impacted by the societal world of the translators and impact in return on the perception of the extra-mental world of their readers. This contribution examines different shades of the historical actors’ experience of the external world about translations. First, the chapter discusses the social and personal interactions of translators working in medieval Toledo, especially Abraham ibn Daud and Dominicus Gundissalinus, and the translation activities that resulted. Second, it examines Roger Bacon’s criticism of translations and his use of “experience” to sustain his argument, stressing the persuasive function that his accounts of experience perform in the text. The results of these case studies show that the notion of experience cannot be reduced to a fixed restricted meaning and stress the role of translations as epistemic vessels of experiences that may be personal, recounted, or persuasively invented.
