Abstract:

Transknowletology, with its achievements comparable with An Anthology of Chinese Discourse on Translation by Cheung, has become a school of thought. Yet recently established as it is, it may have led to the following troubles: (1) meta-knowledge is still to be probed into, to the result that (2) the relationship between truth and knowledge has not been paid attention to; and (3) with the binary opposition between subject and object deconstructed in postmodernism, the subjectivity concerning translation is to be reconsidered. And (4), as epistemology is not what Chinese philosophy is good at, abiding by Western thought, the school is expected to cope with the above problems. As for the book compiled by Cheung, as it also does not go by Chinese thought, it is perennially undecided on whether the Pre-Qin discourse on translation is “fundamental ideas” of translation studies. This paper, with these issues taken into consideration, attempts to reveal, with a corresponding analysis that Chinese thought as the source of translation theory can be verified only when we return to Ruism. The way to realize it is to enlarge the notion of translation as to bring in the idea of hearted-communication (通tong) to promote meta-translation in its direction. And the paper expounds the notion centering on the statement of Master Kong: “I can reach above though I learn below.”

Key words: hearted-communication, Ruism, meta-translation, epistemology