Filosofía y filología (texto, comentario, traducción)

This is an essay which stems from the point of view of philology and is about the possible approximation between two domains which used to be one: we can remember Plato. A conversation among philosophers and philologists has become impossible in a moment I can not specify. It is impossible as long as it is not based on a quote or a philological commentary of a philosophical conception. Philology is a kind of “positive science” which aims to build itself on accurate data thrown by ancillary disciplines as linguistics, history, literature, and others. Philology conceives itself as a science of understanding, and understanding can only be based on one knowledge: to understand, one must know, not imagine. If we take this position to the extreme, philosophy can be seen as a domain of creation, just like literature, while philology is a domain of research, and prefers to base itself on deduction. However, cases like that of Bakhtin, who has been labeled by many as a philologist, can refute this custom of accepting a “fact”, that may prevail the construct over the concrete data. From this point of view, the facts themselves end up being under suspicion of interpretation, and the result of research becomes closer to creation than to exact knowledge. Interpretation is also a resource that somehow connects the interests of philologists with those of some philosophers. The commentary as a form or a kind of philological or philosophical discourse may manifest itself as a ground where disciplines meet once again: as long as it is based on the premise that what is commented on must prevail over the commentary