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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

So you were wrong, Crusoe. There is no modern world to be set against your primitive island. There is no rational thought to be contrasted with that of the primitive. There are no cultures to be kept apart from the untamed species lurking in the jungle.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

4.7.11 Those who think that they can do better and work more quickly will always do worse because they will forget to share their only means of knowing and testing. They will believe that they have done enough when they have "diffused" reasons, codes, and results.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

4.7.10 Since there is only one way of knowing, not two—the testing of relations between forces—there is no way we can avoid a single mistake, absurdity, or crime. We cannot avoid a single experiment or take a single short cut. Even to think the contrary is to delude ourselves with criminal illusions

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

4.7.9 We do not suffer from a lack of soul, reason, science, or justice, but from a surfeit of all these supplements which are added to relations of force to gear down potency and make the weak impotent.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

4.7.8 To oppose right and might is criminal because it leaves the field free for the wicked while pretending to defend it with the potency of what is right. But what is right is without force except "in principle."

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

4.7.7 As soon as "right" is divided from "might," or "reason" from "force," right and reason are weakened because we no longer understand their weaknesses, and we steal the only way of becoming just and reasonable that is available to those who are scorned.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

4.7.6 By believing the opposite, we allow certain lines of force and certain arguments to rule above the networks to which they properly belong. We create potency (1.5.1), and by so doing, we weaken all the others.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

4.7.5 Since there are not two ways of knowing but only one, there are not, on the one hand, those who bow to the force of an argument, and, on the other, those who understand only violence.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

4.7.4 As soon as there is no other world, perfection resides in this one. Complete knowledge is found in this world as soon as there are no more degrees' of knowledge.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

4.7.3.1 Those of us who wish to escort "the sciences" back to their proper habitat are more rationalist than most of the learned who want to extend them "en double." At least we know the cost of the work involved in multiplying those habitats.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

4.7.3 Are the "sciences" cold? Rigorous? Inhumane? Objective? Boring? Apolitical? Modern? These unattainable qualities have simply been attributed to them by their enemies who thereby hoped to stigmatize them (Interlude VI).

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

4.7.2 There is no such thing as superior knowledge and inferior knowledge. If we want to save these terms at all, we will have to say that some forms of knowledge are "higher" than others because the superior have raised themselves with the connivance of the inferior (4.4.0).

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

4.7.1 Since there are only ties of weakness, there are not two ways of learning—one academic, human, rational, or modern, and the other popular, natural, disorganized, or ancient. There is only one way.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

4.6.7 Once we reduce the reduction of "sciences," we are forced to confess that "knowledge" can exist only at the level of traces—in all the senses of this term.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

4.6.6 We still know very little "objectively." We only know anything because some forces grow at the expense of others. We do not have the slightest idea about what links other forces together unless they act as probes and facts in our laboratory conflicts (1.3.1).

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

4.6.5 But what would the innumerable actants enrolled in our conflicts and our brilliant demonstrations say if they were able to talk for themselves?

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

4.6.4 But what would the entelechies that have been enrolled in our conflicts say if they could speak for *themselves*? The "same" as they are made to say. When brilliant demonstrations force us to confess this every day, how can there be any doubt?

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

4.6.3 Now that we are no longer fooled by these maneuvers, we see spokesmen (3.1.3), whoever they may be, speaking on behalf of other actors, whatever they may be. We see them throwing their ranks of allies, some reluctant, some bellicose, into battle one after the other.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

4.6.2.1 If it were possible to explain "science" in terms of "politics," there would be no sciences, since they are developed precisely in order to find other allies, new resources, and fresh troops.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

4.6.2 When we cannot win with our own forces alone, we talk of those whom we command as "power," and the balance as "knowledge." Our opponents may be able to resist the addition of "forces," but not the superiority of "knowledge" over "power."

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

4.6.1 Why should we be surprised that those who amass a surplus of force and add their own weight to a conflict where no one has the upper hand should win?

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

4.5.11 We can perform, transform, deform, and thereby form and inform ourselves, but we cannot *describe* anything. In other words there is no representation, except in the theatrical or political senses of the term.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

4.5.10 If something resists, it creates the optical illusion among those who test it that there is an object that can be seen and described causing this resistance. But the object is an effect, not a cause.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

4.5.9 We can say that whatever resists is real (1.1.5). The word "truth" adds only a little supplement to a trial of strength. It is not much, but it gives an impression of potency (2.5.2), which saves what might give way from being tested.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

4.5.8 One form of know-how is no more "true" than another. It is neither more nor less true than a coffeepot, a tree, or a child's face. There they are, a momentarily stable line of forces (1.1.6).

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

4.5.7.3 People usually talk of "scientific truth" in hushed tones. But there have ever been only three ways of celebrating it: consistency "it is logical"; representation—"it fits"; efficacy—"it works." These three expressions simply serve to indicate the extent to which a network has expanded.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

4.5.7.2. How can know-how be extended? Like radios that are made in Hong Kong, or multiplication tables! There must be buyers and sellers, teachers and commercial circuits, representatives and books that are held to be authoritative.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

4.5.7.1 Nothing escapes from a network, least of all know-how, but who doubts that a network which pays the price can extend itself?

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

4.5.7 There is no such thing as "knowledge" (4.3.2), but it is possible to realize, that is, to make real, to understand.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

4.5.6 Nothing can be known outside the networks organized and manipulated by know-how (1.3.7), but those networks may be extended.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

4.5.5 The only way to know is through trials of strength. "Knowledge" is the state of this battlefront. It extends no further. How could it? (1.1.0).

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

4.5.4 The only way to be strong again is to reproduce relations of force that were once favorable. There is no such thing as prediction. Prediction is the repetition of something that has already taken place, scaled up or scaled down. Only magicians believe that they can foretell the future.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

4.5.3 So they are more certain of themselves than others are? Of course they are ! They have tried their arguments out dozens of times on small-scale models and made all possible mistakes. Obviously they are more certain than those who only have one go.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

4.5.2.1 The rule is quite simple: if we want to increase our strength, use a thousand against one on topics that will pay a hundred to one.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

4.5.2 The supplement of force gained in the laboratory comes from the fact that lots of small objects are manipulated many times, that these microevents can be recorded, that they can be reread at will, and that the whole process can be written for people to read.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

4.5.1 In scientific trades, as in all others, we learn how to increase our force locally (Part One).

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Interlude VIII: In Which a Little Bit of Everyday Sociology Shows What Measures Are

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

4.4.8 Networks are tenuous, fragile, and sparse. We read and we write inside them. We are able to convince only by extending the network, in other words by reducing the scale of whatever is absorbed. The result is that a few people, sitting around a table in a single room, can survey everything.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

4.4.7 It is no more in our power to be abstract than to talk properly (2.2.1).

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

4.4.6.1 The *work* of abstraction is no more abstract than the work of the engraver; the *trade* of the formalizer is no more formal than that of the butcher; the work of purification is no more pure than that of the sanitary inspector.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

4.4.6 How are "abstraction," "formalism," "exactness," and "purity" achieved? Like cheese, by filtering, seeding, molding, and aging. Or like petrol, by refining, cracking, and distilling. We need dairies and refineries. These are all expensive processes, impure crafts that smell.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

4.4.5 So you believe that the application of mathematics to the physical world is a miracle? If so, then I invite you to admire another miracle; I can travel around the world with my American Express card.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 31/12/2025

4.4.4 "Universality" is as local as the rest. Universality exists only "in potentia." In other words it does not exist unless we are prepared to pay the high price of building and maintaining costly and dangerous liaisons.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 20/12/2025

4.4.3 When a series of locations has been mastered and joined together in a network, it is possible to move from one place to another without noticing the work that links them together. *One* location seems "potentially" to contain all the others.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

4.4.2 "General ideas" can be built, but to do so is no more and no less difficult than building a railroad network. We have to pay for a "general idea." We cannot move from one table to another via the concept of "table."

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

4.4.1 Whatever is local always stays that way. No kind of work is *more* local than any other unless it has been conquered (1.2.4) and forced to yield a trace. Then it can be worked on *in its absence*.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

4.3.5 Do they turn toward nature? What could this mean? Look at them! They lean over their writing and talk to one another *inside* their laboratories. Look at them! Their only principle of reality is one that they have determined themselves (1.2.7).

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

4.3.4 Despite all impressions to the contrary, standing by what is written on a sheet of paper alone is a risky trade. However this trade is no more miraculous than that of the painter, the seaman, the tightrope walker, or the banker.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

4.3.3 We do not *think*. We do not have ideas (2.5.4). Rather there is the action of writing, an action which involves working with *inscriptions* that have been extracted ...

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

4.3.2 Knowledge does not exist—what would it be (1.4.3)? There is only know-how. In other words, there are crafts and trades. Despite all claims to the contrary, crafts hold the key to knowledge. They make it possible to return "science" to the networks from which it came (Introduction).

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