Aporia - Etymology

Etymology

The separation of aporia into its two morphemes a- and poros (‘without’ and ‘passage’) reveals the word’s rich etymological background as well as its connection to Platonic mythology. Sarah Kofman asserts that these two components are crucial to a fuller understanding of the word, which has been historically translated and understood somewhat reductively: “translators, who usually escape their perplexity by translating poros as ‘expediency’ and aporia as ‘difficulty’...leave the reader in the dark as to all the semantic richness of poros and aporia and give no hint as to their links with other words belonging to the same ‘family’” (9). Such links inevitably demonstrate that the terms are part of a “tradition” that Plato borrows from, a tradition which “breaks with a philosophical conception of translation, and with the logic of identity that it implies” (10). To demonstrate such a break, Kofman reviews multiple instances of the term throughout Plato’s work. Her discussion of the myth of Poros, Penia, and Eros in Plato’s Symposium especially reveals the concept’s untranslatability. Penia, the “child of poverty,” decides to forcefully impregnate herself with the inebriated Poros, the personification of plenty, who is always in opposition with aporia and thus defining aporia. The result of this union is Eros, who inherits the disparate characteristics of his parents (25). The perplexing aspect of the myth is revealed as one realizes that Penia is acting out of resourcefulness, a quality normally attributed to Poros, and Poros’ inaction reveals his own passivity, a poverty of agency or poros. Such a relationship intensely affects not only the context of aporia but its meaning as well:

Penia is no more the opposite of Poros than is the aporia; the true, philosophical aporia, or Penia, is always fertile; in her all opposites are placed under erasure; she is neither masculine nor feminine, neither rich nor poor…neither resourceful nor without resources. This is why Aporia, which breaks with the logic of identity, and which pertains to the logic of the intermediary, is an untranslatable term. (27)

Ultimately, aporia cannot be separated from this etymological and cultural history. Such history provides insight into aporia’s perplexing semantic qualities as well as into the historical context in which the word functions as an indicator of the limits of language in constructing knowledge.