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irreductions

@irreductions.bsky.social

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One irreduction at a time https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674657618

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · Dec 4

"Nothing can be reduced to anything else, nothing can be deduced from anything else, everything may be allied to everything else."

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 2d

I am vulgar, but this is essential in a domain where injustice is so profound. They laugh at those who believe in levitation but claim, without being contradicted, that theories can raise the world.

irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 2d

But if "theories" rather than tables are moved, then people talk excitedly of a Kuhnian "paradigm shift."

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 2d

If a young couple move a piece of furniture in their living room and conclude, little by little, that it does not look right and that all the furniture will have to be moved for everything to fit again, who finds this worthy of note?

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 2d

If the most obscure Popperian zealot talks of "falsification," people are ready to see a profound mystery. But if a window cleaner moves his head to see whether the smear he wants to clean is on the inside or outside, no one marvels.

irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 2d

But if a famous philosopher in Amsterdam asserts that we must "divide up each of the difficulties into as many parts as possible," no greater admiration could be expressed for "a method of rightly conducting the reason and seeking for truth in the sciences."

irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 2d

If consumers cut their steak into small pieces to make it easier to chew, no one comments.

irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 2d

If an unfortunate witch attributes success in battle to a magic rite, she is mocked for her credulity. But if a celebrated researcher attributes the success of her laboratory to a revolutionary idea, no one laughs, even though everyone should. The thought of making a revolution with ideas!

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 2d

If a capitalist sells an unprofitable factory, he is accused of rapacity. But if an illustrious scientist renounces a discredited hypothesis, then on the contrary he is held to be showing disinterestedness.

irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 2d

4.2.3 "Science" is an artificial entity separated from heterogeneous networks by *unjust means*. There are two measures, one for the "scientists" and the other for the rest.

irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 13d

If the mongrel tribes that do the dirty work were withheld from "physics," its elucubrations could not be distinguished from those of alchemists or psychoanalysts: was this possible in the past when there were not so many tribes?

irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 13d

4.2.2 "Science" has no standing of its own. It takes shape only by denying what carried it to power and by attributing its solidity not to what holds but to what is held together (2.4.7). With this denial "it" ignores even itself.

irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 14d

The tiny fraction that remains is valued by a few thousand people only, communicated to a few thousand more, and popularized for the benefit of a few million brave souls who hardly understand it at all. For billions of others all these networks are *invisible*.

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irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 14d

Two to three percent of the GNP of a few industrial nations, two-thirds of which is spent on industry and for military purposes—that is not much.

irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 14d

4.2.1 "Science"—in quotation marks—does not exist. It is the name that has been pasted onto certain sections of certain networks, associations that are so sparse and fragile that they would have escaped attention altogether if everything had not been attributed to them.

irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 22d

All of which is to say that this precis, which prepares the way for the analysis of science and technology, is not epistemology, not at all.

irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 22d

"Be instant in season, out of season," to say that "there is something in addition, there is also reason." This cry of the faithful conceals the violence that it perpetrates, the violence of *forcing* this division.

irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 22d

Since the gods were destroyed, this faith has become the main obstacle that stands in the way of understanding the principle of irreduction. Its only function is passionately to deny that there *are* only trials of strength.

irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 22d

Of course, I am exaggerating. The faith has some kind of content. Technically, it is the negation of the paragraph with which I started this précis (1.1.2).

irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 22d

Yes, in epistemology belief is reduced to its simplest expression, but this very simplicity brings success because it can spread easily, aided by neither priest nor seminary.

irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 22d

All the failings of epistemology—its scorn of history, its rejection of empirical analysis, its pharisaic fear of impurity—are its only qualities, the qualities that are sought for in a frontier guard.

irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 22d

Epistemology is nothing but the untiring affirmation of this tautology. Abandon everything; believe in nothing except this: there is a scientific way of knowing, *and other ways*, such as, the "natural," the "social," or the "magical."

irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 22d

But surely this difference must represent something real since it is so radical, so total, and so absolute? Admittedly the credo of this religion is poor. All that it offers is *a tautology*. "To know" scientifically is to know "scientifically."

irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 22d

A furrow, to be sure, an act of appropriation, an enclosure in the middle of nowhere, which follows up no "natural" frontier, an act of violence. Yes, it is another trial of strength which divides the forces putting might on one side and right on the other.

irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 22d

So what is this difference which, like Romulus and his plough, makes it possible to draw the *limes* that divide the scientific from other ways of knowing and convincing?

irreductions @irreductions.bsky.social · 22d

"Why not rebuild this chaotic, badly organized world of compromise in accordance with the laws of our world?"