We are happy to share the issue by Alessandro Esposito, L’attività del tradurre nella psicologia hegeliana: trasformazione e liberazione del soggetto finito, published in the latest issue of “Verifiche” (XLIX, 1-2, 2020).

Here below you can find the abstract of the text:

The aim of this article is to show the centrality of the notion of ‘translation’ in Hegel’s psychology of the human subject or to show that the activity of self-liberation and self-transformation of the finite subject should be understood as a form of ‘translation’. First, I will argue for the possibility of equating the notion of ‘translation’ with ‘transformation’. Thanks to the analysis of Angelica Nuzzo, I will show how the activity of translation represents a movement of self-transformation through the comprehension of the contradictions inside the finite, immediate, and original starting point of the process. To do that, I will analyze the dialectical relation between the knowledge of the finite being and the infinite determinations of thought. The outcome of this dialectical movement will show that Hegel understands the activity of translation as the necessary passage from the finitude of the subjective psychology to the free spirit. Both Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences and Phenomenology of Spirit present Tätigkeit des Übersetzens as a central concept for the transformation of finite determinations of the spirit into the universal dimension of thought. This concept enables the clarification of the simultaneous presence of various aspects of the spirit itself, both as finite and infinite. The continuous interdependence of these two sides in the Psychology could be explained by Hegel only through a movement that affirms both the finite determinations of the subject and the necessity of these determinations to translate themselves into the universality of free will. In the end we will argue that the movement of translation is a movement of liberation of the finite subject from the unilaterality of its psychological dimension and from the necessity of this finite dimension for the self-determination of the spirit itself.

You can download the pdf of Esposito’s essay from the button below.