Perpetuum Mobile: Substance, Force and the Sociology of Translation

Abstract

Going after means taking up a position with regard to something and the active pursuit of that same thing. It is the critical move par excellence, but also an act of appropriation. This essay suspends the urge to go after in preference for an exploration of the trajectory of that body of texts known as the sociology of translation. The figure of the perpetuum mobile is put into circulation through these texts in order to trace some of their more unusual and unfamiliar connections. These include a whole series of parallels with seventeenth century classical philosophy and with nineteenth century ‘social energetics’. Connections are drawn out by using three ‘test signals’, which are sent on through the ANT canon: substance, force and time. Pivotal to each is the sense of how very different events and apparently diverse territories can be brought into contiguity, or folded up together. This contiguity needs to be performed rather than described, placed in translation rather than simply presented. The chapter concludes by tracing a way from the strange folds of ANT to the equally peculiar forms of early Psychology.