Untranslated Theory – Fractal Ontology

All posts filed under: Untranslated Theory

Translation from Gilles Deleuze’s Ontology: Véronique Bergen on the Syntheses of the Unconscious in Difference and Repetition

Monday, November 5, 2007

The following is an excerpt on the syntheses of the unconscious in Difference and Repetition from Véronique Bergen’s L’Ontologie de Gilles Deleuze, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2001. 325-327. Original translation by Taylor Adkins on 11/05/07. The three syntheses of the unconscious in the times developed in Difference and Repetition, the three “beyonds of the pleasure principle”[1] organizing bio-psychic life “correspond to figures of repetition, which appear in the work of a great novelist: the binding, the ever […]

Translation: Michel Serres and the Mathematization of Empiricism

Sunday, November 4, 2007

by Taylor Adkins

comment 1

empiricism / entropy / error / French Translation / Hermes / information / information theory / mathematics / negentropy / philosophy of science / sensation / Serres / Untranslated Theory

The following is a translation of Michel Serres’s essay “Mathematization of Empiricism.” from Hermes II: L’Interférence. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1972. 195-200. Original translation by Taylor Adkins 11/03/07. The law known as Fechner-Weber’s law can be written S = K log I, and read: sensation grows like the logarithm of the stimulus[1]. The definition of Information, in the contemporary sense, can be written I = K log P, and read: information grows like the logarithm […]

Translation: Two Entries from Francois Zourabichvili’s book on Deleuze’s Vocabulary: Univocity and Pre-Individual Singularities

Saturday, November 3, 2007

by Taylor Adkins

comments 8

A Thousand Plateaus / definitions / Deleuze / difference / Difference and Repetition / French Translation / intensity / Logic of Sense / nomadic distribution / ontology / pre-individual / singularities / Theory / Philosophy / transcendental field / univocity / Untranslated Theory / Zourabichvili

The following are two entries from Francois Zourabichvili’s book La vocabulaire de Deleuze. Paris: Ellipses, 2003. Original Translation by Taylor Adkins 11/03/07. Pre-individual Singularities * We cannot accept the alternative which thoroughly compromises psychology, cosmology, and theology: either singularities already comprised in individuals and persons, or the undifferentiated abyss. Only when the world, teeming with anonymous and nomadic, impersonal and pre-individual singularities, opens up, do we tread at last on the field of the transcendental […]

Translation of Vision-in-One: Additional Definition to Laruelle’s Dictionary of Non-Philosophy

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

by Taylor Adkins

comments 3

axiomatics / badiou / Deleuze / determination / French Translation / immanence / Laruelle / non-philosophy / the count / the multiple / the One / the Real / Theory / Philosophy / Untranslated Theory / vision-in-one

The following is an entry from Francois Laruelle’s Dictionnaire de la non-philosophie. Paris: Editions Kimé, 1998. Original translation by Sid Littlefield, 10/31/07. Vision-in-One (One, One-in-One, Real) Primary concept of non-philosophy, equivalent with “One-in-One” or the “Real.” What determines the theory of in-the-last-instance and the pragmatics of the Thought-World (“philosophy”). The vision-in-one is radically immanent and universal; it is the given-without-givenness of the givenness of the Thought-World. Philosophy is the desire and oppression of the One, […]

Translation: Six Entries from Francois Laruelle’s Dictionary of Non-Philosophy

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

by Taylor Adkins

comments 7

axiomatics / decision / first science / fractality / French Translation / Laruelle / metascience / non-philosophy / Theory / Philosophy / transcendental / Untranslated Theory

Francois Laruelle’s project (from the following entries) can, in my opinion, be best related to the previous translations I have posted on Alain Badiou and Albert Lautman. Badiou’s concept of model as coupling (ideological/scientific)–like Laruelle’s coupling of philosophy/non-philosophy–and questions of logical formalism intersect well with Lautman’s discussion of Hilbert and metamathematics. Although Laruelle specifically names Deleuze (in a negative way, moreover), his project seems to have the strongest correlation to Alain Badiou (especially some of […]

Translation: Jean-Hugues Barthélémy on Simondon, Bergson and Teilhard de Chardin

Monday, October 22, 2007

by Taylor Adkins

comments 8

Bachelard / Barthélémy / becoming / bergson / communication / complexity / French Translation / individuation / ontogenesis / ontology / philosophy of science / physiology / Simondon / singularities / Teildhard de Chardin / transindividual / Untranslated Theory

The following is the first half of chapter 1 from Jean-Hugues Barthélémy’s book Penser l’individuation: Simondon et la philosophie de la nature. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2005. p. 37-48. Original translation by Taylor Adkins on 10/22/07. Chapter 1 The concept of object and the concept of subject, in the same virtue of their origin, are limits that philosophical thought must overcome. –Gilbert Simondon 1. Ontology and ontogenesis: from Bergson to Simondon The philosophically fundamental watchword of all […]

Translation: Simondon, Completion of Section I, Chapter 1, The Individual and Its Physico-Biological Genesis

Friday, October 19, 2007

by Taylor Adkins

comments 8

abstract machine / assemblage / autopoeisis / becoming / being / change / communication / complexity / differentiation / Disparation / formalization / French Translation / individuation / information / materiality / metastability / model / modularity / morphogenesis / morphology / ontogenesis / ontology / philosophy of science / production / self-actualization / Simondon / singularities / structure / system / technology / Untranslated Theory

In the first place, singularities-events correspond to heterogeneous series which are organized into a system which is neither stable nor unstable, but rather ‘metastable,’ endowed with a potential energy wherein the differences between series are distributed. (Potential energy is the energy of the pure event, whereas forms of actualization correspond to the realization of the event). In the second place, singularities posses a process of auto-unification, always mobile and displaced to the extent that a […]

Translation: Alain Badiou and the Concept of the Model: Introduction to a Materialist Epistemology of Mathematics

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

by Taylor Adkins

comments 5

abstraction / badiou / Carnap / Dialectical Materialism / epistemology / French Translation / ideology / marxism / mathematics / meta-theory / model / philosophy of science / Quine / Untranslated Theory

The following is the first three sections of Alain Badiou’s first theoretical book Le Concept de modèle: introduction à une épistémologie matérialiste des mathématiques. Paris: Maspero, 1968. p. 7-17 and is an original translation by Taylor Adkins [10/17/07]. Editor’s Advertisement: The beginning of this text continues a talk given on April 29, 1968 by Alain Badiou within the framework of the “Course of philosophy for scientists” given to the National university. This continuation should have […]

Translation: Albert Lautman’s Essay on the Notions of Structure and Existence in Mathematics

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

by Taylor Adkins

comments 7

axiomatics / Brunschvicg / Deleuze / Difference and Repetition / foundations of mathematics / French Translation / Hilbert / Lautman / mathematics / metamathematics / Poirier / problematics / Russell / Uncategorized / Untranslated Theory / Whitehead

We should speak of a dialectics of the calculus rather than a metaphysics. By “dialectic” we do not mean any kind of circulation of opposing representations which would make them coincide in the identity of a concept, but the problem element in so far as this may be distinguished from the properly mathematical element of solutions. Following Lautman’s general thesis, a problem has three aspects: its difference in kind from solutions; its transcendence in relation […]

Translation: Michel Serres and the Eternal Return

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

by Taylor Adkins

comments 2

chaos / complexity / Cosmogony / Cosmology / Distribution / Eternal Return / French Translation / kant / Laplace / michel serres / Nietzsche / philosophy of science / system / Untranslated Theory

The following is Michel Serres’s essay “Eternal Return” in Hermes IV: Distribution. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1977. pp. 115-124. Original translation by Taylor Adkins on 10/10/07 Philosophers glorify Nietzsche for having suddenly rejoined the Greeks through their fulgurating intuition of the Eternal Return. Either from an ignorance of ethics or incomprehension of the general figure that this thesis takes in his philosophy, I reduce this to a vision of the world. Vision with the […]

Translation: Francois Laruelle’s Beyond the Power Principle

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

by Taylor Adkins

comments 13

abstraction / French Translation / Laruelle / non-Marxism / non-philosophy / Politics / power / Uncategorized / Untranslated Theory

The following is the preface from Francois Laruelle’s Beyond the Power Principle pp. 1-9 and is an original translation by Taylor Adkins 10/09/07. Stylistic Caution A: But if everyone knew this most would be harmed by it. You yourself call these opinions dangerous for those exposed to danger, and yet you express them in public? B: I write in such a way that neither the mob, nor the populi, nor the parties of any kind […]

French Translations: Works in Progress

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

by Taylor Adkins

comments 23

Bachelard / badiou / Boudot / Deleuze / French Translation / guattari / Laruelle / Lautman / Lyotard / Ruyer / Serres / Simondon / Stengers / Untranslated Theory / Whitehead

My last six posts have all been translations; they range from philosophy of science to paradigms for approaching and studying Nietzsche. I plan to continue working on translating Boudot’s work (including sections from three of his books on Nietzsche, featuring comparisons of Nietzsche with Bataille, Camus, and Bachelard); Ruyer’s work (Genesis of Living Forms, Cybernetics and the Origin of Information, and The Paradoxes of Consciousness and the Limits of Automatism); Guattari’s work (Schizoanalytic Cartographies; The […]