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Question This is more a technical than a philosophical question, I think. When referencing Greek philosophers, what is the significance of providing the original Greek word(s)? (e.g., “Your eagerness [PROTHUMIA] is worth much if it should have some right aim.”) Is there something about Greek (as opposed to other foreign languages) or about philosophy that makes this useful? As a reader, what am I supposed to be doing with these?

Accepted:
December 29, 2007

Comments

The original words are there because translation is an exceptionally tricky business, and it's often important, from a scholarly point of view, to know what the original words were, so that one can judge the correctness of a translation, or note that two words that are cognates in English are also (or are not) cognates in the original. This is more common, I think, in classical philosophy, though you certainly will see it in any sort of historical study of sources originally in another language. But if so, then that is only because classical Greek is an old language. It's not because Greek is particularly difficult.