a [not that] small matter of translation
Jim Conley, Professor Emeritus (Dept. of Sociology — Trent University), kindly wrote us an email to point to an error in the English translation of the Inquiry (p. 421). A real mistake which we missed entirely... Needless to say that we are very grateful to him. Find the excerpt below:
'In AIME, ch 15, p. 421, the English version of the last sentence of the first paragraph is:
"It thus seems essential to her to hold fast to the suppleness—that is, the contingency—of inequalities, never to give them more strength, durability, solidity than what they have acquired through those provisionally irreversible decisions, never to refuse to transform the masters into inhabitants of a transcendent level that would dominate the poor wretches “below” for real."
The last "never" struck me as contrary to what Bruno Latour has always argued, so I checked the French original on the web. It reads:
"Il lui paraît donc essentiel de toujours conserver aux inégalités leur souplesse, c’est-à-dire leur contingence ; de ne jamais leur donner plus de force, de durabilité, de dureté que celles qu’elles ont acquises par ces décisions provisoirement irréversibles ; de refuser de transformer les maîtres en habitants d’un niveau transcendant qui dominerait pour de bon celui des pauvres hères."
Thus the second "never" should be deleted and the English version should be as follows:
"It thus seems essential to her to hold fast to the suppleness—that is, the contingency—of inequalities, never to give them more strength, durability, solidity than what they have acquired through those provisionally irreversible decisions, to refuse to transform the masters into inhabitants of a transcendent level that would dominate the poor wretches “below” for real."'