Letter to Irena Krońska written in 07.04.1955

Author Roman Ingarden

Category outgoing correspondence, Polish researchers in Roman Ingarden's correspondence

Archive Archive of Science PAN in Cracow

Date of creation 7.04.1955

Reference code in archive K_III-26_D_34

Resource type letter

Subject matter publication issues, translations

Field philosophy

Tags #"Critique of Pure Reason", #Christmas wishes, #Committee meeting, #Conversation with Burman, #copy of translation, #difference between translations, #editor's rights, #Editorial Committee of the Library of Classics of Philosophy, #Étienne de Condillac, #general meeting, #Immanuel Kant, #Irena Krońska, #Izydora Dąmbska, #Jan Legowicz, #Kartesian conference, #Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, #legal issues, #Library of Classics of Philosophy, #Meditations, #Obiectiones, #paper about translations, #Polish Philosophical Society, #Prolegomena, #PTF, #René Descartes, #review, #Stefan Swieżawski, #stylistic changes, #tłranslations

Prof. R. Ingarden c c c Krakow, 4/7/1955
Krakow, Biskupia 14

c c Dear Ms. Irena,

c c c c thank you for your letter and for returning the copy of “Critique” to me. I would also like to thank you very much for your Christmas greetings and wishes, and likewise wish you all the best for this Christmas, may it provide you with some much-needed rest and peace.
c With regards to the issue of Burman, I am also sending the Committee a copy I received with a request for me to rewrite it cleanly after including Prof. Legowicz’s corrections. Separately, I would like to ask for a clean copy of Ms. Dąmbska’s translation, and, after that, for the return of all three copies / i.e. including Prof. Legowicz’s manuscript /. In the current situation, it is difficult for me to ger a holistic impression of Prof. Legowicz’s translation. I went through some particular excerpts comparing the wording proposed by Prof. L. and Ms. D’s text. The vast majority of the corrections are of stylistic nature, so their assessment should also be aesthetic. I cannot achieve that when there is still a need to decipher both texts. The whole issue seems quite complex to me, not so much for the subject matter as for legal reasons. Prof. Legowicz basically wrote a new translation, which complicates the matter.
I am preparing a separate report regarding the legal issues that arise in this type of cases and the rights and responsibilities of the editors that I will be sending to the Committee, or to the Committee plenum. I also intend to write a report on the translations of “Conversation with Burman”, wherein I shall discuss every proposed correction, i.e. every difference between the Ms. Dąmbska’s and prof. Legowicz’s translations. It will take time, so I doubt that this matter will be ready to be discussed at the meeting at the end of April or in early May, especially since I am currently also working on two other tasks /Condillac and Kant’s Prolegomena/. That is why I suggest postponing the meeting on Cartesian topics. Unless the matter that was to be discussed first was that of the possible changes in the translation of “Meditations” / by M. and K. Ajdukiewicz / or, conversely, the matter of introducing corrections to Świeżawski’s translation of “Obiectiones” and adapting it to correspond with the translation of “Meditations”. It would only be after that were decided upon that the question of how to translate Conversation with Burman would come up. Then the meeting on Cartesian topics you suggested could take place on the date you proposed. However, I believe the general meeting of the Polish Philosophical Society is supposed to take place in the first half of May. Maybe the two could be somehow combined, so that I can avoid travelling to Warsaw twice. Time is indeed very scarce.

Thank you again for your letter and I send you my heartfelt greetings and all the best wishes for Christmas