Letter to the Committee of the Library of Classics of Philosophy written 10.06.1952

Editorial Committee of the Library of Classics of Philosophy              v       Krakow, 4/10/1952
Department: German philosophy
Krakow, prof. R. Ingarden
L 27/52

To

The Editorial Committee of the Library of Classics of Philosophy at the SPI

Warsaw, Nowy Świat St. 35 apt. 4a

I would like to kindly inform that together with Jerzy Gałecki, PhD, the author of the translation of Herder’s work “Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menscheit”, I read about one-third of the first batch of the translation of said work sent to the Editorial Committee /typescript pages 1 – 103/. Based on this reading I came to believe that this part of the translation could be accepted by the Editorial Committee and that the author of the translation should be paid the royalties due to him under the contract. The translation – although it still requires some corrections and retouching – mainly of stylistic nature – possesses a high level of accuracy and scientific correctness, and even some added value in terms of literary style. As literature Herder’s text is difficult to translate, but it also presents many substantive difficulties due to various details of contemporary knowledge cited by Herder, and often not easy to comment on and faithfully translate today. The author of the translation, however, seeks to overcome all these difficulties and in general approaches the text he worked on with great seriousness. He is also very open to cooperation in introducing revisions to his translation. As for the necessary corrections, the translator has already made quite significant corrections to the part already submitted while working on further parts of the translation, and will send them to the Editorial Committee along with the next batch of translation, which he is now finishing.
Before the final preparation for printing, I will read the entire translation in extenso once again with the translator and introduce the possible corrections. The necessary corrections I have pointed out in the already reviewed part of the text have already been accepted by the translator[.]

 /prof. Dr Roman Ingarden/