Help:Latin quotes combined with problem of German.

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polemarchos
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Help:Latin quotes combined with problem of German.

Post by polemarchos »

Kant wrote in his 'Der Streit der Fakutitaeten/Eigentuemlichkeit der medizinischen Fakultaet (page A23)', that government concerns itself with the medical faculty, in order that "...zweitens, dass es keine Afteraezte gebe (kein ius impune occidendi, nach dem Grundsatz: fiat experimentum in corpore vili)".

I can not catch the meaning of this sentence.
First, about Latin:
ius impune occidendi and fiat experimentum in corpore vili
Where are they from?

Second, about the whole sentence. Does it mean: according to the principle that the experiment should be done in the worthless body (so cannot in the human body), there is nobody (barber-surgeon) has the right (law) that he could kill a person (by his poor operation) while does not have to be punished?

Thanks.

Kerastes
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Re: Help:Latin quotes combined with problem of German.

Post by Kerastes »

You are far braver than I. Kant is the last author I would attempt to read in German. :!:
polemarchos wrote:ius impune occidendi and fiat experimentum in corpore vili
Where are they from?
The first, let experiment be made on a worthless body, probably comes from a Latin translation of a medical work. The second, the right to kill with impunity, may come from medieval legal literature -- I've never heard the phrase before.
Does it mean: according to the principle that the experiment should be done in the worthless body (so cannot in the human body), there is nobody (barber-surgeon) has the right (law) that he could kill a person (by his poor operation) while does not have to be punished?
I feel unsure about this. What's Afteraezte? Do you mean Affenärzte, which I assume to be something like "quack-doctor"? In any case, I think the parenthetical part points out that there is no right to kill with impunity, but there is a principle that experiment can be made on a worthless body. On can train on corpora vilia so as to avoid killing anyone in actual practice, which is a legitimate concern of government.

Kerastes

polemarchos
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Post by polemarchos »

Thank you for your reply. The sentence seems more intelligible to me now. But, does in corpore vili mean "in the dead body of human being"?
I use the Theorie-Ausgabe Vol. XI (Suhrkamp 1981) of Kant works, the word on page 289 is indeed Afteraerzte, not Affenaerzte (though the print error is quite possible when the work was transcribed from old German characters into latin ones). I cannot find this word in my dictionary, but I assume it, as you do, means "quack-doctor", because Chinese language can employ "After" to form a phrase that expresses similar meaning (though very coarse).

In the Cambridge edition of Kant works, this word is translated as "spurious doctor", but this edition only translates the Latin quotes in footnote without explanation.

In fact, the German here is quite clear, the only problem is how to incorporate the meaning of Latin quotes into the whole sentence to make sense. I read some works of Kant in German, the expression in this work is relatively easier to understand than those in Critiques.

Kerastes
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Post by Kerastes »

polemarchos wrote:But, does in corpore vili mean "in the dead body of human being"?
It literally means "on a body that has no value". It does refer to a human body. On corpus versus cadaver, Döderlein's work on Latin synonyms says "Cadaver denotes the dead body as a mere material substance, like carcass; but corpus as the remains of personality, like corpse, and is always used when the dead body is spoken of with feeling."

Kerastes

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