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.

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.

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.

Interlude VII: In Which We Learn Why This Précis Says Nothing Favorable about Epistemology

4.1.10 If people did not believe in "science," there would be nothing but trials of strength. But even "in science" there are only trials of strength.

4.1.9 Since nothing is by itself either reducible or irreducible to anything else (1.1.1), there cannot be tests and weaknesses on the one hand and *something else on the other* (1.1.2, 1.1.5.2, 2.3.4, 2.4.3, 2.5.1).

4.1.8 They are skeptical and unbelieving about witches and priests, but when it comes to science, they are credulous. They say without the slightest hesitation that its efficacy derives from its "method," "logic," "rigor," or "objectivity" (2.1.0).

4.1.7 What we call "science" is chosen in a rather random manner from a motley crowd of actants. Though it represents the others, it denies this fact (3.4.6).

4.1.6 What we call "science" is made up of a large array of elements whose power we prefer to attribute to a few.

4.1.5 We are suffering not from too little but from too much spirit. The *spirit*, alas, never lives up to the *letter*. Spirit is only a few words, among many to which the meaning of all the other words is unfairly attributed. Spirit thus becomes a potent illusion.

4.1.4 When a network conceals its principle of association, I say that it displays "potency." When the array of weaknesses that makes it up is visible, I say that it displays "force."

4.1.3 Conversely, once force is seen to lie in the alliance of weaknesses, potency vanishes. Of course, the forces are still there, but the illusion of potency is annihilated.

4.1.2 Do not trust those who analyze magic. They are usually magicians in search of revenge.

4.1.1 You can become strong only by association. But since this is always achieved through translation (1.3.2), the strength (1.5.1, 2.5.2) is attributed to potency, not to the allies responsible for holding things together (3.3.6).

Chapter 4 Irreduction of "the Sciences"

3.6.6 Worlds probably look more like a Rome than a computer. Or rather, the best-conceived computer should be thought of as a collage of displaced, reused ruins, a splendid Roman confusion (Kidder, 1981). Each entelechy looks like the court of Parma.

3.6.5 Though it may sound strange, we are probably no more closely tied to most of the forces we speak for than a trade unionist is to the workers he represents, or a managing director is to his shareholders. I speak here of our dreams just as much as of our rats, our stomachs, or our machines.

3.6.4 Someone speaks breathlessly to others who understand only what they want to hear. The story is about those who reveal themselves through enigmas and symptoms. From time to time those who are being talked about interrupt, furious that they have been betrayed.

3.6.3.1 What we despise as political "mediocrity" is simply the collection of compromises that we force politicians to make on our behalf.

3.6.3 Only in politics are people willing to talk of "trials of strength."

3.6.2 Everything happens as if there were no trials of strength but rather a strange fantasy: “men” “discovering” “nature”!

3.6.1 What is it all about? What is the state of affairs? Someone speaks in the name of others who say nothing, and replies to my questions by putting me among the dumb. If the reply convinces me, I am no longer able to disentangle why, for it brings too many acolytes to support it.

3.5.5 What we are pleased to call "other cultures" have a number of secrets; ours may have only one. This is why "other cultures" seem mysterious to us and worth knowing, whereas our own seems both unknowable and stripped of mystery.

3.5.4 Fortunately, the world is no more disenchanted than it used to be, machines are no more polished, reasoning is no tighter, and exchanges are no better organized.

Interlude VI: In Which the Author, Losing His Temper, Claims That Reducers Are Traitors

3.5.3 The "modern world" is the label on the button that unites extreme potency and extreme impotence (3.4.1). The heterogeneous and local application of weaknesses becomes a system of powers with prestigious names such as nature, economy, law, and technology.

3.5.2 Can we describe all networks in the same way? Yes, because there is no "modern world."

3.5.1 We are always misunderstanding the efficacy of forces: we attribute things to them that they have only been lent (1.5.1). We hold them to be pure, though they would be completely impotent if this were the case.

3.4.10 It is not a question of *systems* (3.2.3). Since people know that the origin of power does not reside in the purity of forces, they locate it in a "system" of pure forces.

3.4.9 It is not a question of *nature* (3.2.5).

3.4.8 It is not a matter of *intersubjective relationships*. Only in our day and age could we hope to find people so impoverished as to try to explain nuclear reactors, nation-states, or stock exchanges on the basis of "interactions."

3.4.7 It is not a matter of *society*. The meaning of the "social" continually shrinks—it has now been reduced to the level of "social" problems.

3.4.6 It is not a matter of *science*. If arguments were sovereign, they would have all the potency of a gouty monarch immured in a crumbling castle.

3.4.5 It is not a question of *language* or of language games (2.3.0, 2.4.3, 2.4.4). Words are not powerful but borrow their strength from compromises that are far removed from "belles lettres."

3.4.4 It is not a matter of *machines* or *mechanisms*. These have never existed without mechanics, inventors, financiers, and machinists.

3.4.3 It is not a matter of the *law*. This is a ratchet which, like any other (1.1.10), permits an actant to make the temporary occupation of a position irreversible.

3.4.2.1 A general economy—a calculus of pleasure, genes, or profit—is not possible. It would need to reveal those who negotiate, those who have paid, those who have lost and won, how much the repayments are worth, and when the account should be closed.

3.4.2 It is not a matter of *economics*. This makes use of equivalents, without knowing who makes equivalent, and of accountancy, without knowing who measures and counts.

3.4.1 How should we talk about all these things that hold together? Should we talk of economics, law, mechanisms, language games, society, nature, psychology, or a system that holds them all together?

Interlude V: Where We Learn with Great Delight That There Is No Such Thing as a Modern World

3.3.5 In order to extend itself, an actant must program other actants so that they are unable to betray it (3.3.3), despite the fact that they are bound to do so (3.3.4).

3.3.4 Yet you cannot stop forces from playing against each other (3.2.2).

3.3.3.2 There is nothing special in these machinations apart from this Machiavellian injunction: collect the largest possible number of faithful allies that we can *inside*, and push those that we doubt to the *outside*. In this way we get a new division between the hard and the soft.

3.3.3.1 To gain potency is always a matter of setting forces against one another. The power that results from the whole array is then attributed to the *last* force, trapped by all the others.

3.3.3 When a force has found allies that allow it to fix the ranks of other forces in a lasting manner, it can extend itself again. This is because the faithful are tied by such durable links that the force may withdraw without fear.

3.3.2 If we want to stop forces from transforming themselves the moment we turn our back, we should avoid turning our back! Powers always dream of being everywhere, even when they are far away or long gone.

3.3.1 In order to spread far without losing coherence, an actant needs faithful allies who accept what they are told, identify themselves with its cause, carry out all the functions that are defined for them, and come to its aid without hesitation when they are summoned.

3.2.5 A well-defined state of affairs is the work of *many forces*. They agree about nothing and associate only via long networks in which they talk endlessly without being able to sum one another up.

3.2.4 As it associates elements together, every actor has a choice: to extend further, risking dissidence and dissociation, or to reinforce consistency and durability, but not go too far.

3.2.3 How can those in whose name we speak be stopped from talking? How can those that have been recruited through good luck be cemented into a single block? How can the rebels and the dissidents be pacified?