Abstract

This research article is devoted to the research of philosophical terms of the famous Kyivan Rus’ artifact on translation of the 11th century – “Miscellany of 1073”. Scientists studied this subject in the past. However, they were focused on logical terminology, reflected in the famous fragment of “Miscellany”, which was called “philosophical treatise”. The author of this research article, unlike other scientists, has researched a part of the text “Joseph on the Maccabees”. It is no less important for clarifying the peculiarities of the philosophical terms use than the already mentioned “philosophical treatise”. The chapter “Joseph on the Maccabees” in “Miscellany” is a translation of fragments of the 4 Maccabees from Greek into Old Church Slavonic, which raises the issue – how passions can be guided by reflection. This well-known apocrypha is quite saturated with receptions of classical Greek philosophy, primarily Platonism, Aristotelianism and Stoicism. It is also extremely valuable as an illustration of the complex process of the translator’s selection of ancient Slavic equivalents of Greek philosophical terms related to the philosophy of knowledge and ethics. Some of them were subsequently established in our philosophical language. In particular, the features of translation of such Greek words as “λογισμὸς”, “νοῦς”, “λόγου”, “σοφία” reflected in “Miscellany” into Old Church Slavonic have been analyzed, and the possibility of Old Church Slavonic terms translation into modern Ukrainian has also been considered. The result of the study is recognition of the need to raise the issue of modern Ukrainian philosophical terms ability to reproduce ancient Greek or even ancient Slavic terms associated with philosophy of knowledge in the process of translation. In particular, when dealing with “Miscellany”, it becomes clear that it is wrongful to reflect all cognitive processes and psychic instances with the concept “mind” in the modern terminological scheme. When dealing with old handwritten material in Old Church Slavonic, in particular “Miscellany of 1073”, it is necessary to define and distinguish the concepts of “reflection”, “mind”, “intellect”, “wisdom”, since they had specific meaning generated by attempt to translate them from Greek.