Relations of Translation Between Actants

I am still experimenting with the diagram below, but as I was teaching the concept of
translation in Harmans Prince of Networks today, I found it to be a useful heuristic device for
thematizing ust what is new or interesting in !atours concept of translation"
#learly I have adapted this diagram from
Helmsleves model of the sign" $ll of us are
familiar with the relation between the signifier
and the signified in %aussurean linguistics &to the
left'" In naive theories of linguistic translation
&N((s', the idea is that the conceptremains
the same &content', while it is only
the signifier &expression' that changes" (here are
any number of reasons that this concept of
translation is mistaken" I outlined some of these
shortcomings in aprevious post, so I wont repeat
them here" !atours concept of translation is broader than that of translation as it applies to
linguistics or the transposition of texts from one language to another" (he key point to take
home from his analysis) and he doesnt spell these implications out himself )is not so much
the fact that a translated text always differs from the text that it translates, but rather that the
process of translation produces something new, regardless of whether the relation is between
texts in different languages, conscious minds to world, or relations between obects" *hat
!atour wishes to do, I think, is generalize the concept of translation, such that translation is
no longer restricted to the domain of language, nor re+uiring the involvement of living beings
of some sort, but rather involves any relations among actants, human or nonhuman, living or
material"
Helmslevs key innovation in the domain of linguistics and semiotics was to recognize
that boththe plane of expression &loosely the signifier' and the plane of content &loosely the
signified' have a form and substance that can enter into different relations with one another"
Here I am partially basing my analysis of ,eleuze and -uattaris treatment of Helmslevs
model of expression and content as developed in .(he -eology of /orals0 in $ (housand
Plateaus" (his discussion would re+uire a far more developed analysis than Im capable of
giving at the moment" 1or those who are interested, it would be worthwhile to refer to
,e!andas early work on this essay &here and a number of ,elandas articles, podcasts, and
talks can be found here', as well as the first chapter of $ 2sers -uide to #apitalism and
%chizophrenia by 3rian /assumi" *hile I dont entirely share the ontological commitments of
either of these thinkers, their works nonetheless provide some pointers in the direction Im
thinking"
read on4
Hopefully Ill have more time to elaborate on the
diagram above in the near future &Im in a rush
now', but to understand whats at stake its
helpful to take a brief detour through $ristotles
four causes" I apologize for the inelegance of my
diagrams" Hopefully my diagram of $ristotles
four causes in the upper right hand corner of this
paragraph &click to expand' will convey some of
the sense of his sorting" (he important point to
keep in mind here is that $ristotles term .cause0
&aition' is closer to what we might mean by
.reason0 than how we think of .causes0 today" 5ach of the four causes is a way of answering
the +uestion of what and why a thing is" (he efficient cause is therefore that by which
something is produced" (he material cause is that out of which something is produced" (he
formal cause is the structure or pattern of a thing" $nd 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 a
dotted line distinguishing what is potential &6789:;<' from what isactual & 8=>?@;9'" If the
material cause and the efficient cause are associated with potentiality, then this is because
matter) for example clay )has the potential to take on many different forms through the
agency of an efficient cause" !ikewise, if form and finality are associated with actuality, then
this is because structure or pattern &the formal cause' indicate that matter has taken on a
determinate form, whereas something is actual when it reaches its goal or t elos" I take it that
these distinctions are well known, so I will not elaborate on them in greater detail here with
the proviso that much more can and should be said"
#losely associated with the distinction between
matter and form and potentiality and actuality is
the distinction between passivity andactivity" In a
crude version of the $ristotlean schema matter is
thepassive principle and form is
theactive principle" Aeturning to the %aussurean
schema of the sign under N(( &the naive theory of
translation', the signified as the constancy of
meaning is the form or active principle that inB
forms the signifier or passive material of
expression" (his reveals another dimension of
formC it is what remains constant or identical in all of its instantiations in matter" (he role of
matter is simply to take on form, without contributing anything to form beyond the
mere instantiation of that form in an existent" Aeferring to another inelegant diagram in the
left above &click to enlarge', we can call this the ontology of .sovereignity0" (he sovereign can
be anything from a king to a general to a father to -od to a boss to a teacher" (he sovereign
functions as the efficient cause containing the form as an ideational structure &like an
architects or engineers blueprint' that is then imposed on apassive matter" (he key point
here is that causation is conceived in a unidirectional fashion, passing from the sovereign and
his blueprints to the passive matters to be inBformed"
It is now possible to discern the innovation in the adapted Helmslevian schema" In the
relation between $ctantD and $ctantE there are arrows between the two schemas" (hese
arrows indicate one actant acting upon another actant" It will be noted that both actants
possess both a form &structure, pattern' and a substance &a .materiality0 broadly construed'"
$s Harman often puts it .there is no such thing as unBformBatted matter" In addition to each
actant 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 as
the other actants that an actant has .appropriated0 to constitute itself as an actant, while
.expression0 can be understood as the manner in which the actant has .actualized0 itself
+ualitatively at a particular point in time" In Harmans language, content can be understood
as the .withdrawn0 being of an actant, while expression could be understood as the .sensuous
vicar0 by which this withdrawn being is expressed for another being" *hy, then, the additional
dimension of matter for each of these actantsF 3ecause in addition to the internal composition
of each actant or its content &what I call the endoBconsistency of a being which is roughly
analogous to %uarezs .substantial forms0', the being of any actant is infinitely decomposable
into other actants or entities" *ith great caution we can refer to this .matter0 as .hyperB
chaos0, so long as we note that this hyperBchaos is structured and that its apparent .disorder0
is only disorder from the standpoint of the structured being of a particular actant &more on
this another time'"
(he diagram at the beginning of this post re+uires a great deal more commentary than I can
give it here" (he shift from the $ristotlean model where we have) at least in thought )pure
unformed matter that is completely passive or a sort of .hyletic flux0, thereby re+uiring inB
formingBing from another actant to my adapted version of Helmslevs model where allactants
have both a form &structure, pattern' and a substance &formed matter' initially appears slight"
However, if we refer back to $ristotles model the significance of this slight shift becomes
apparent" If each actant involved in an interBactBion has form, then it follows that the
actantreceiving the action of another actant cannot merely be a passive matter taking on the
form of the other actant &the ontology of sovereignity'" Aather, because actantE itself
has form, structure, or pattern, it too is an active principle" Get as an active principle it too
must contributedifference" Get, if this is the case, then it follows that the form of actantH) the
outcome produced by the interaction of actantD and actantE )cannot merely be
the instantiation of the form of actantD, but must instead be a .synthesis0 of the forms of
actantD and actantE producing something new through this interBactBion" $ task and a criti+ue
are here announced at the ontological level" (he criti+ue would be a criti+ue of all those
vestiges of the ontology of sovereignity where some set of actants is treated as consisting
merely of passive materials that take on the form of some other actant" (he
positive task would be to trace these imbrications of forms in interBactBion, investigating the
manner in which they produce new forms as a result of the .struggle0 between these forms" It
now becomes clearly why the alternative ontology is ahorizontal, flat, immanent, or
networked" No longer can one actant stand apart from the rest imposing a unidirectional,
formBbestowing causality on all the others" Aather, the soBcalled .sovereign0 now becomes an
actor in a field of actors where causality is biBdirectionality and where form is a result of interB
actBions among actants rather than an identity preserved across chains of interBactBions like a
signified behind a signified that is inBdifferent to its instantiations in other matters"
http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/relations-of-translation-between-actants/