Reflections on the bond between a theory of translation and a theory of the unity of human beings

Abstract

Is there a possibility of an universal communication between all the human beings, as the XVIII^th century's rationalism as well as contemporary structuralism state, or on the contrary, the real translation and communication between cultures is an a priori impossible? We study some texts, from the XVI^th to the XX^th century, on which different authors take a position on that subject. We find that in all of them the possibility of translation is supported by an unprovable and extra-linguistic postulate: the unity of human kind. When this postulate is not present, even if one is endowed with the linguistic competence, translation is considered impossible or irrelevant.