Translation Problems in the Compendium of Philosophy and Their Impact in Japan During the Christian Century (16th–17th Century)

Frédéric Girard examines the vocabulary of the Compendium of Philosophy (1595), a Japanese adaptation of Aristotle's De Anima, by the Jesuit Pedro Gómez (1535-1600). An attempt to translate Western philosophical concepts into Japanese, it was intended to convince the Japanese that they had a rational soul. Balthasar Gago's (1555) prohibition of rendering these concepts using Buddhist vocabulary was intended to distinguish the two religious worlds of Buddhism and Christianity.