🔶Andrii Vasylchenko, Ph.D, Dukh i Litera Publishing House
🔶Volodymyr Volkovskyi, PhD, the Czech-Ukrainian Scientific Society
🔶Alexander Dmitriev (moderator)
Questions to be discussed together:
🔶What is the relationship between philosophy and the language of philosophical texts?
🔶How can we overcome the hegemony of simplified English, and yet avoid falling into the trap of linguistic purism, which would single out only certain languages as philosophical?
🔶How can universal philosophical truth be reconciled with pluralistic networks of philosophical untranslatable terms?
🔶What are the distinctive features of the Ukrainian language as a language of philosophy?
We invite everyone interested in these topics to a discussion centered around the publication of “European Vocabulary of Philosophies. The Ukrainian Context” (Kyiv: Dukh i Litera, 2024).
This volume, published during wartime, contains an original Ukrainian contribution to the international project Vocabulaire européen des philosophies. Dictionnaire des intraduisibles, which originated under the direction of Barbara Cassin in 2004 and has been translated into various languages, including Ukrainian.
The Ukrainian initiative group was the first to propose and begin translating the Vocabulary from French. The multi-volume edition of the Vocabulary became a revolution in the Ukrainian intellectual space. Following the publication of the first four volumes, the question arose regarding the existence of Ukrainian untranslatables, which embody the characteristic features of Ukrainian philosophical language or, rather, philosophizing in Ukrainian.
It is worth noting that even the first four volumes, when translated into Ukrainian, were supplemented with appendixes by Ukrainian authors-translators, who added distinct Ukrainian connotations to the pan-European (French) (con)text. Furthermore, the question of philosophizing in Ukrainian was accompanied by the more global question of the language of philosophizing (the language of philosophy and theology) in the Eastern Slavic context generally, particularly in the context of Kyivan Rus’ and its derivative political and ethnic formations. This led to the publication of Volume 5 of the Vocabulary, which is primarily written by Ukrainian authors and is in fact a dialogical response to the posed problem and theme.
The new, fifth volume was published amid war and consists exclusively of original texts written by Ukrainian authors. The Ukrainian articles enter into dialogue with and supplement the texts of the French edition. Moreover, the fifth volume contains bibliographical indices that help the reader navigate the entire scope of the Vocabulary.
We invite you to participate and join in this shared reflection!