After some preliminary notes on the fragmented state of Translation Studies, the author directs his attention to one of the seemingly irreconcilable oppositions within the discipline, namely, between ‘theoretical’ and ‘historical’ approaches to translation. On the basis of insights from modern epistemology it is claimed that the two are, in fact, complementary and that one should aim for a continuous interplay between them. Normative approaches fail to achieve this and prove to have little explanatory power when confronted with the historical reality of translation. Four discursive strategies are discussed whereby this anomaly is often camouflaged or explained away.