No 4 (2012)

In this paper the author treats three important questions of Hermeunetic philosophy.Firstly, the character and importance of tradition as the bearer of the long experience of interacting with one’s world, with other persons and with God (it is constituted not only of chronological facts, but of insights regarding human perfection which have been forged in the human person’s concrete striving to live with dignity). Secondly, the implications for the content of tradition of the continually unfolding circumstances of historical development (these do not merely extend or repeat what went before, but constitute an emerging manifestation of the dynamic character of the classical vision articulated in the epics, in law and in political movements). Thirdly, hermeneutics (how can the tradition be understood in its significance for present action?).

It is argued that the conventional symbolic function, which is characteristic for phonetic type of writing, contrasts with iconic (in the sense of Charles Pierce) nature of Chinese pictograms and ideograms. Principal problems of cross-culture communication, which are preconditioned by Chinese fundamental non-symbolic paradigm, are identified and analyzed. Methodological background of adequate translation is discussed.

This paper deals with the methodological problems pertaining to the translation of Sanskrit philosophical texts raised by famous Russian Buddhologist and Indologist Theodor Stcherbatsky (1866—1942) and developed by his brilliant disciple Otto Rosenberg (1888—1919). The author addresses to the problems of translation as discussed by some modern Russian Sanskritologists. The main thing — is to keep the balance between the typological similarity of different traditions of thought. The author’s opinion is closer to that of Rosenberg who made an accent on the otherness, than to that of Stcherbatsky who put forward the idea of philosophia perennis .

This study is carried on a special aspect of the translation of the Qur’ān, which starts from Eugen Nida’s study on the same type of practical and theoretical aspects in translating the Bible. The vocabulary of the Qur’ān, like the vocabulary of any other sacred book, can usually be divided into religious vocabulary, which carries the very notions contouring the respective religious system, and general vocabulary. Both religious and general vocabulary are subject to an evolution of meaning, the first category as a result of the institutionalization of religion, the second as a result of a normal, expected transformation, accomplished over time, that occurs in any language.

In the 4 th volume of his Futuhat Ibn Arabi addresses murids on the issue of fitna (temptation) and its overcoming. His message boils down to the statement that to overcome any temptation we need not to turn away from it but to open our heart to it in order to see the zahir-batin (outward-inward) coordination of the wordly and the Divine in any object of temptation and, consequently, to discover God as the other side of any such object.

This article includes a translation of the part of the treatise “Epistle on Sufism” by one of the most famous sufy theoretics of the Xth century al-Qushchayi (986—1072), as well as the commentary to his work. For the translation was selected the first part of the treatise, that hasn’t been yet translated to Russian and which describes the author’s main aims and goals. The article emphasizes on the importance of this work in the history of sufism.