Postscript: The report’s effect should not count as bad, and it also received Teacher Ren’s highest praise. Still, I feel that many things were not explained clearly, because I myself was only able to read this article through after reading Science in Action. However, since the issues discussed in this article are not the same as those in Science in Action in terms of emphasis, when explaining this article it was very hard to weave in material from Science in Action and similar books. I tried to introduce some of it, but the result may not have been very good: on the one hand, a few words do not make things clear and instead only add confusion; on the other hand, these extra insertions interrupt the original narrative order of the article. Add to that the fact that the preparation was rushed and my on-the-spot performance was not at its best, and that is how it ended up, settling for this level.
I am posting here the original text of the PPT; of course, when I was lecturing through it I also added many supplementary remarks. What follows is only an archive.
As for the translation of the title, I still insist that it definitely should not be “forming things.” Considering the pun, perhaps one could barely coin “drawing things together”? As for inscription, some classmates said that “mingxie” is too awkward, and I agree; at least in some contexts “inscription” translated as “mingwen” reads more smoothly. Translating Science in Action as “record” is too bland. “Mingxie” is the translation used by Teacher Ren and in some other texts I have read, so I have kept it.
Original PPT text:
Latour: Drawing things together
bringing things together / gathering things / forming things
Inscription——mingxie (inscription, stele carving)
From Derrida’s “literary inscription.” Decentering.
Inscription = visible evidence
The importance of “inscription” is first manifested in the speeches and debates of scientists.
“You doubt what I say? I’ll show you!”|36|
—And what will then be shown to you as decisive, ironclad evidence is, of course, not the things themselves—the universe, stars, atoms, dinosaurs, and so on—but rather those data, charts, texts, images, and so forth that can be “spread out before your eyes without moving a few inches.” And through these, it is as if we are thereby linked together with those remote and unreachable things. How exactly is such a connection established? That is precisely what Latour wants to examine.
The importance of “inscription”
In the following several paragraphs Latour successively cites some well-known scholars’ writings, listing how the importance of “inscription” is manifested in various sciences. For example: chemistry (Dagognet), medicine (Foucault), geography (Rudwick), economics (Fourquet), anthropology (Fabian)…
In short, “if scientists are gazing at nature, the economy, stars, organs, they cannot see anything. … Only when scientists stop looking at nature and instead focus intently and obsessively on printed matter and flat inscriptions do they begin to see things.”
And in traditional discussions of epistemology, this quiet drift is often overlooked. This is exactly what Latour is examining: how are those messy three-dimensional things transformed into clearer and more distinct planar images? Which forces are involved in this process?
“Inscription”vs“abstraction”
This process of flattening three-dimensional things may be called “abstraction” in traditional epistemological language. But Latour precisely points out that this so-called activity of abstraction is not achieved through human cognitive faculties or psychological activity; in other words, this is not primarily an epistemological or psychological topic, but a sociological and anthropological one.
The title “drawing things together” is meant to suggest this process of transformation from “things” to “inscriptions”: it is carried out through activities like “uniting” and “gathering,” and what is “united” includes not only the originally chaotic things themselves, but also the various ready-made theories that were originally unrelated, as well as all manner of power institutions that arrive unexpectedly, and so on.
How convincing certain inscriptions are—that is, the “evidence” displayed in scientific argument—depends on how vast and powerful a set of “allies” it can “mobilize.” Latour’s suddenly appearing line later on, “Inscriptions allow conscription!”, will then make sense.
The object of study is not inscription itself
What the study will focus on is not inscription itself, but inscription as the fine edge or the final stage of the entire process of “mobilization” (fine edge and the final stage).
“Without displacement, inscriptions are worthless; without inscriptions, displacements are wasted.”
—For example, natural historians collect rocks, samples, fossils, genes, and so on from all over the place. This is the first step of displacement. But merely gathering these things together is clearly not enough; one must also ensure that the specimens are properly preserved, appropriately labeled and classified, and so on. But that is still not the end, because a museum is still too large for a single person. In order for scientists to handle things more effectively, those collections also have to be drawn up and recorded. Then the scientists continue to work on those graphs and records…
La Pérouse maps Sakhalin
Science in Action
Rather, it is a cascade apparatus of inscriptions simplified layer upon layer
The larger this cascade apparatus (layer upon layer, cascade, waterfall, continuous transfer, one thing after another…) is, the “harder” the “facts” it produces become—“with each new collection, each new labeling, each new redrawing, the cost of opposition will increase.”
For instance, if you want to challenge a claim, the scientist will show you a set of “inscriptions,” that is, a series of data, charts, texts, and so on. But if you continue to challenge it—for example, one of the data points—you will discover that behind it there is yet another series of supporting backers…
The “black box” theory mentioned by Latour in Science in Action is also talking about a similar phenomenon (as shown in the figure):
More precisely, what we are really dealing with is…
The “setting” that makes it possible to produce an apparatus layered with ever more inscriptions stages a drama on a carefully arranged stage, so as to display inscriptions most effectively. (That is to say, the background against which “evidence” is displayed more efficiently and more strikingly)
The further back one looks into the history of science, the more the background of inscription draws attention away from inscription itself.
For example, in Shapin’s account of Boyle’s vacuum pump experiments, we see that what Boyle had to create was not only phenomena, but also the apparatus that made the phenomena visible, the methods by which the apparatus could be displayed, as well as the written and printed reports, and the on-site and potential “witnesses.” “Seeing the vacuum” is possible only after all these witnesses have been disciplined (disciplined).
In mature scientific research, that eye-catching theatrical performance has long since receded. The usual scene may be a few people in a room pointing at flat graphs and talking to one another, as if the pictures in front of them were the whole of what they were discussing. This is merely because we have already grown accustomed to the “background,” and it does not mean that we do not need to examine how this powerful mechanism gradually took shape.
Tycho, endorphin.
Tycho: the first one not to look at the sky. Instead, he carefully observed all the observations of his predecessors and his own, wrote them up in a unified form, and put them together for calculation and comparison.
The construction process of “endorphin.”
What are those famous things said to lie behind the text in Science in Action made of? They are made of a series of victories: in the hydrogen sulfide competition it defeated uranium and thorium; in the ammonium sulfate competition it defeated antimony and arsenic; … Originally, “things” were a score sheet of a series of trials. … The “things” behind scientific texts are therefore similar to … heroes: they are all defined by their achievements. … Originally, there was no other way to know the essence of a hero. However, this did not last long, because every achievement presupposes a competence, and this competence retrospectively explains why the hero could withstand all the merciless torture. The hero is no longer a score sheet of actions; he, she, or it is an essence, … 149[89]
Capitalized inscriptions that mobilize allies
Advantages of written work:
1. Portable: you can’t take “America” home with you, but you can take an “map of America.”
2. Immutable: does not deteriorate during movement.
3. At a glance (flat): a plane without shadows.
4. The scale can be adjusted arbitrarily. “Galaxy” is no bigger than “chromosome.”
5. Easy to reproduce and disseminate.
6. Can be rearranged and recombined,
7. Can connect and integrate different theories
8. Text and world correspond to each other through the linkage of the laboratory.
9. The geometrization of the world
The geometrization of the world
From “empirical” to “theoretical” science, “inscriptions” become increasingly easy to move and increasingly hard to change. This tendency is even more evident within “formalism.”
Roughly speaking, “formal systems” do not deal directly with things, but rather with inscriptions that have already been formalized. But the principle is still similar. An account of how “things” become files can likewise explain how files become fewer files.
The Galilean case: Galileo’s success lay in linking and integrating methods or fields that had originally been isolated from one another. —If you possess Galileo’s charts, then you possess three fields; whereas others have only one. This kind of “possession” is no more mysterious, or no less mysterious, than possession of armies or stocks.
The power of scientific theory comes from its ability to mobilize allied troops.
Piaget’s experiment
The construction of the concept of “volume.”
The “discovery” of “conservation” is not a mental cognitive capacity, but the disciplining of the experimental background.
The three classification cases in Science in Action: the little girl flifli; the Kalam people’s turkey; the paleontologist’s Archaeopteryx. (around 326[198])
The issue of practice
“Now we are approaching an understanding of the substance that makes up formal systems. The point of departure is that we are constantly wandering back and forth among several often contradictory indications from our senses. Most of what we call ‘abstraction’ is, in practice, a belief—we trust written inscriptions more than any contrary indications from the senses. For example, Koyré has already pointed out that Galileo believed in the principle of inertia on a mathematical basis, even while opposing the contrary evidence provided both by the Bible and by the senses. Koyré claims that this rejection of the senses should be attributed to Galileo’s Platonism. That may well be so. But what does this mean in practice? It means that, in the last analysis, when faced with many conflicting indications, Galileo trusted calculations of the law of falling bodies expressed in triangular diagrams more than any image of a falling body. When in doubt, trust inscriptions written in mathematical terms, whatever falsehoods they may bring you.”
The issue shifts from psychology and epistemology to anthropology (training).
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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