On Erlebnis within Translation Knowledge

For Gadamer, translation operates as an illustrative “extreme case” of interpretation, of interest to the extent that it can push the logics of less-extreme interpretative practices. Yet the main thing Gadamer consistently says about what is extreme in translation seems to be that it is a strangely intellectual process, bereft of lived experience. One can nevertheless trace threads of lived experience within translation knowledge, both through what translators say and from what translation process research reveals. Further, the nature of that experience, in exceeding its interpretations, can justify an empirical attitude to its study. Hence hermeneutics could do worse than incorporate empirical attitudes into its work on translation, rather than endlessly repeat inherited insights.