“The philosophical account of translation in this book is of what it means to read like a translator” (5) writes Damion Searls. Some might object that philosophy isn’t particularly good at describing reading (or writing, for that matter) and argue that one should prefer literary theory, but Searls enlists philosophers to describe what translators do (they read). Philosophy, moreover, usefully displaces translation ‘theory’ which too often, in his view, involves telling translators w...
