Abstract/Summary

A unified set of questions arises in translation theory as it does in philosophy: how can one particularity be related to another? Can any general truth emerge from this relationship? And if so, in what particular language might this general truth be thought about and discussed? This article explores how various French thinkers have addressed these questions, from Alain Badiou’s recent account of philosophical French in terms of universalism, to Antoine Berman’s and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe’s readings of an alternative approach to universalism provided by German thought. Where a key passage in Badiou’s text suggests that he has Friedrich Hölderlin in mind, this poet-translator provides an explicit model for the other two thinkers.