INTERPRETING AND TRANSLATING WEBER,MAX

Proceeding from Schleiermacher's distinction between mere interpreting and genuine translating, I argue that much of social science requires only 'technical' interpreting (Dolmetschen) rather than 'creative' translating. In Max Weber's case, matters are made easier by the fact that he stayed within a recognisable pattern of international scholarship. He had actual and elective affinities with the Anglo-Saxon world, especially in politics and ethics. In spite of some epistemological difficulties, this has made his translatability and his general reception relatively easy. The essay discusses some of the vicissitudes of the English Weber translations and concludes that general readability is the best that can be achieved, because a translation becomes outdated whenever new theoretical issues arise. Translators cannot anticipate which terms will become important in a few years. For each specific purpose new choices must often be made.