Quote

"
The presentation of the theory of knowledge presents a peculiar difficulty. This difficulty is linguistic. Human language was a not made for speaking about knowledge; linguistic formality is not cognitive formality; there are infra-linguistic and supra-linguistic cognitive levels."
- Leonardo Polo, Curso de teorĂ­a del conocimiento, tomo I

Monday, June 15, 2015

Translating "sentimientos"

Polo's anthropology includes a discussion of "sentimentos humans". How should this be translated? In English, there are various works like "sentiments", "feelings", "emotions", and "affections".

An added complication is to identify how to translate this when speaking of "sentimientos" related to different aspects of the human being: her nature, her essence, the person.
Some possibilities that have been proposed are,

Proposal A:
Feelings of the human nature (feelings belong to the senses)
Emotions of the human essence (emotions belongs to anima)
Affections of the human person (affections belong to spirit)

Proposal B:
Passions of human nature
Emotions of human essence
Sentiments of the person
With "feelings" and "affections" being general.

What are your thoughts?