Some remarks on Freud as "translator" and translating Freud.

Abstract

The paper comments on Mark Solms' Revised Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud and the challenges to grasp the subtleties and ambiguity of Freud's language. It argues that "translation" is not something that just "occurs"' to a text which is already completed, but an ongoing process that carries forward and explores different layers of meaning. The author tries to show that Freud saw himself as a "translator" and that "translation" reaches at the very core of the psychoanalytical endeavour. The multiple meanings of "transference", and the translation of terms like "Nachträglichkeit" and "Zweizeitigkeit" (bi-temporality), are presented as examples of this. To conclude, Freud's dwelling in two different epistemological models, the language of neurophysiology and the language of meaning, as well as the limits of translation are discussed.