relations of translation between actants (briant levy)

7/28/2019 Relations of Translation Between Actants (Briant Levy)

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Relations of Translation Between Actants

I am still experimenting with the diagram below, but as I was teaching the concept oftranslation in Harmans Prince of Networks today, I found it to be a useful heuristic device for

thematizing just what is new or interesting in Latours concept of translation.

Clearly I have adapted this diagram fromHjelmsleves model of the sign. All of us are

familiar with the relation between the signifierand the signified in Saussurean linguistics (to theleft). In naive theories of linguistic translation(NTTs), the idea is that the conceptremainsthe same (content), while it is onlythe signifier (expression) that changes. There areany number of reasons that this concept oftranslation is mistaken. I outlined some of theseshortcomings in aprevious post, so I wont repeat

them here. Latours concept of translation is broader than that of translation as it applies tolinguistics or the transposition of texts from one language to another. The key point to take

home from his analysis and he doesnt spell these implications out himself is not so muchthe fact that a translated text always differs from the text that it translates, but rather that theprocess of translation produces something new, regardless of whether the relation is betweentexts in different languages, conscious minds to world, or relations between objects. WhatLatour wishes to do, I think, is generalize the concept of translation, such that translation isno longer restricted to the domain of language, nor requiring the involvement of living beingsof some sort, but rather involves any relations among actants, human or nonhuman, living ormaterial.
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Hjelmslevs key innovation in the domain of linguistics and semiotics was to recognizethat boththe plane of expression (loosely the signifier) and the plane of content (loosely thesignified) have a form and substance that can enter into different relations with one another.Here I am partially basing my analysis of Deleuze and Guattaris treatment of Hjelmslevsmodel of expression and content as developed in The Geology of Morals in A ThousandPlateaus. This discussion would require a far more developed analysis than Im capable ofgiving at the moment. For those who are interested, it would be worthwhile to refer toDeLandas early work on this essay (hereand a number of Delandas articles, podcasts, andtalks can be found here), as well as the first chapter of A Users Guide to Capitalism andSchizophrenia by Brian Massumi. While I dont entirely share the ontological commitments ofeither of these thinkers, their works nonetheless provide some pointers in the direction Imthinking.

read on!

Hopefully Ill have more time to elaborate on thediagram above in the near future (Im in a rushnow), but to understand whats at stake itshelpful to take a brief detour through Aristotles

four causes. I apologize for the inelegance of mydiagrams. Hopefully my diagram of Aristotlesfour causes in the upper right hand corner of thisparagraph (click to expand) will convey some ofthe sense of his sorting. The important point tokeep in mind here is that Aristotles term cause(aition) is closer to what we might mean byreason than how we think of causes today. Each of the four causes is a way of answeringthe question of what and why a thing is. The efficient cause is therefore that by whichsomething is produced. The material cause is that out of which something is produced. Theformal cause is the structure or pattern of a thing. And the final cause is the goal or that for

the sake of which something is produced. It will be noted that bisecting the four causes is adotted line distinguishing what is potential () from what isactual ( ). If thematerial cause and the efficient cause are associated with potentiality, then this is becausematter for example clay has the potential to take on many different forms through theagency of an efficient cause. Likewise, if form and finality are associated with actuality, thenthis is because structure or pattern (the formal cause) indicate that matter has taken on adeterminate form, whereas something is actual when it reaches its goal or t elos. I take it thatthese distinctions are well known, so I will not elaborate on them in greater detail here withthe proviso that much more can and should be said.

Closely associated with the distinction betweenmatter and form and potentiality and actuality is

the distinction between passivity andactivity. In acrude version of the Aristotlean schema matter isthepassive principle and form istheactive principle. Returning to the Saussureanschema of the sign under NTT (the naive theory oftranslation), the signified as the constancy ofmeaning is the form or active principle that in-forms the signifier or passive material ofexpression. This reveals another dimension of
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form: it is what remains constant or identical in all of its instantiations in matter. The role ofmatter is simply to take on form, without contributing anything to form beyond themere instantiation of that form in an existent. Referring to another inelegant diagram in theleft above (click to enlarge), we can call this the ontology of sovereignity. The sovereign canbe anything from a king to a general to a father to God to a boss to a teacher. The sovereignfunctions as the efficient cause containing the form as an ideational structure (like anarchitects or engineers blueprint) that is then imposed on apassive matter. The key pointhere is that causation is conceived in a unidirectional fashion, passing from the sovereign andhis blueprints to the passive matters to be in-formed.

It is now possible to discern the innovation in the adapted Hjelmslevian schema. In therelation between Actant1 and Actant2 there are arrows between the two schemas. Thesearrows indicate one actant acting upon another actant. It will be noted that both actantspossess both a form (structure, pattern) and a substance (a materiality broadly construed).As Harman often puts it there is no such thing as un-form-atted matter. In addition to eachactant possessing a form and a matter, each matter contains both a content and an expression.Here content and I need to say much more about this can be understood asthe other actants that an actant has appropriated to constitute itself as an actant, while

expression can be understood as the manner in which the actant has actualized itselfqualitatively at a particular point in time. In Harmans language, content can be understoodas the withdrawn being of an actant, while expression could be understood as the sensuousvicar by which this withdrawn being is expressed for another being. Why, then, the additionaldimension of matter for each of these actants? Because in addition to the internal compositionof each actant or its content (what I call the endo-consistency of a being which is roughlyanalogous to Suarezs substantial forms), the being of any actant is infinitely decomposableinto other actants or entities. With great caution we can refer to this matter as hyper-chaos, so long as we note that this hyper-chaos is structured and that its apparent disorderis only disorder from the standpoint of the structured being of a particular actant (more onthis another time).

The diagram at the beginning of this post requires a great deal more commentary than I cangive it here. The shift from the Aristotlean model where we have at least in thought pureunformed matter that is completely passive or a sort of hyletic flux, thereby requiring in-forming-ing from another actant to my adapted version of Hjelmslevs model where allactantshave both a form (structure, pattern) and a substance (formed matter) initially appears slight.However, if we refer back to Aristotles model the significance of this slight shift becomesapparent. If each actant involved in an inter-act-ion has form, then it follows that theactantreceiving the action of another actant cannot merely be a passive matter taking on theform of the other actant (the ontology of sovereignity). Rather, because actant2 itselfhas form, structure, or pattern, it too is an active principle. Yet as an active principle it toomust contributedifference. Yet, if this is the case, then it follows that the form of actant3 the

outcome produced by the interaction of actant1 and actant2 cannot merely bethe instantiation of the form of actant1, but must instead be a synthesis of the forms ofactant1 and actant2 producing something new through this inter-act-ion. A task and a critiqueare here announced at the ontological level. The critique would be a critique of all thosevestiges of the ontology of sovereignity where some set of actants is treated as consistingmerely of passive materials that take on the form of some other actant. Thepositive task would be to trace these imbrications of forms in inter-act-ion, investigating themanner in which they produce new forms as a result of the struggle between these forms. Itnow becomes clearly why the alternative ontology is ahorizontal, flat, immanent, or
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networked. No longer can one actant stand apart from the rest imposing a unidirectional,form-bestowing causality on all the others. Rather, the so-called sovereign now becomes anactor in a field of actors where causality is bi-directionality and where form is a result of inter-act-ions among actants rather than an identity preserved across chains of inter-act-ions like asignified behind a signified that is in-different to its instantiations in other matters.

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relations of translation between actants (briant levy)

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