ترجمة الكوجيتو الديكارتي : "cogito, ergo sum" إلى اللغة العربية

Abstract EN

This study aims at demonstrating how deep understanding of the original text and a deep knowledge of the writer’s philosophy and ideas help the translator come up with the best translation of a philosophical text.

The text we have chosen for this study is the Cartesian cogito; “Cogito, ergo sum”, “je pense, donc je suis”; the most famous quotation in the history of modern philosophy which means “I think, therefore I am”.

This formulation was first mentioned in René Descartes’ book: “Discours de la Méthode”, “Discourse on the Method” that was written in French in 1637 and translated into Latin by the same writer in 1644.

The source of the famous quotation was translated into many languages throughout the years including Arabic.

The only available Arabic translation of this quotation is “ أنا أفكر، إذن أنا موجود" , from the Arabic version of the book “مقال عن المنهج ” translated by Mahmoud Mohamed El Khediri in 1968.

This study explores to what extent the Arabic translation has conveyed the intended meaning of the original text, does the translation send the reader the same message that Descartes really meant in his book or it only shows a small part of a very vast and complicated formulation.