Translation and analogical understanding: meaning beyond equivalence and arbitrariness

This article develops an account of translation grounded in analogical understanding rather than equivalence or arbitrary convention. It argues that meaning does not depend upon identity between linguistic forms, nor upon purely differential systems detached from embodied practice. Translation operates through situated judgment, drawing upon shared forms of life, historical inheritance, and practical orientation toward the world. By examining philosophical debates in semantics, hermeneutics, and translation theory, the paper shows that analogy enables continuity of meaning across difference without reducing languages to interchangeable codes. Translators do not reproduce meanings; they reconstruct them through interpretive acts responsive to context, purpose, and audience. This framework challenges both strict formalism and radical relativism, offering a middle path that explains stability without sameness. Translation thereby reveals a general feature of understanding: meaning emerges through relational comparison, experiential grounding, and responsible decision making. The article concludes that translation provides a privileged site for rethinking meaning, interpretation, and communication across linguistic and cultural boundaries. This perspective carries implications for ethics, pedagogy, and intercultural philosophical inquiry today.