Double Negation

Double negation

Descent is the impetus for a direct transmutation of the values of the imagination, and Harding quotes the Gnostics for whom “ rising or descending is the same thing”, associating with the conception of inversion the mystical doctrine of Blake for whom descent is also a path to the absolute.

下降是幻想的價值直接轉換的驅動力。哈定曾引用以下的諾斯教義：「上昇與下降其實相同」，讓人聯想到布雷克的逆轉與神秘信條的觀念：「對他而言下降也是到達絕對的途徑」。

One descends in order to go backwards in time and recapture prenatal tranquility. Let us consider this important process of inversion. What is the psychological mechanism which gives rise to euphemisation, and even to radical antiphrasis ( since the abyss transmuted into a cavity becomes an end in itself and the fall, which has become a descent, is transformed into pleasure)? Such euphemizing inversion could be defined as a process of double negation.

我們下降為了要在時間中倒退，重新補捉出生胎前的安詳。且讓我們考慮一下倒轉的重要過程。既然轉換成洞口的深淵本身成為目的，已經成為墮落的下降轉化為歡樂，是怎樣的心理動力產生這樣的委曲求全，甚至是全然的反其道而行？

這樣的委曲倒轉能夠被定義為一種雙重否定的過程。

We have already encountered the precursors of this process in the dialectic of binding and in the character of the binder bound. This process is also revealed in the numerous fabliaux and popular legends in which the robber is robbed, the deceiver deceived, etc., and is signaled in proverbial paradoxes such as : “ The biter bit”, “ set a thief to catch a thief”, etc.

在捆綁的辯證法及捆綁者反被捆綁的特性中，我們已經遭遇到這種過程的先驅者。在無數的傳奇故事及通俗傳說中，我們也見証到這種過程：強盜反被搶劫，欺騙者反被欺騙。在格言的矛盾語中，諸如「咬人者恆被咬之」「以賊抓賊」更是屢見不鮮。

In this procedure the positive is reconstituted through the negative ; by negation or a negative act the effect of initial negativity is destroyed. It could be said that the source of dialectic reversal lies in the process of double negation of images before it is codified in grammatical formalism.

在這個過程中，我們可以透過否定重建肯定：以否定或否定的行為，摧毀最初的否定效果。我們可以這樣說：辯證法則的逆轉在於影像的雙重否定，這樣它才能在文法的形式主義中被定位。

This procedure constitutes a transmutation of values: I bind the binder, I kill death, I use the arms of the adversary himself. Hence I sympathize with all, or a part, of the behavior of the adversary. The procedure is therefore clearly indicative of a whole way of thought, an arsenal of logical processes and symbols, which is radically opposed to the di$retic attitude and to the pharisaism and the intellectual and moral catharism of the intransigent Diurnal Order of the image. Double negation can be seen as the criterion for a total inversion in representational attitudes.

這種過程組成價值的轉換：捆綁我者反被我捆綁，死亡被我殺死，我以其人之道還置其身。因此對於對方的全部或部份，我能同情。這種過程因此明白指示出思想的完整方式，一整套的邏輯及符號，跟一成不變的影像的白天秩序所展現的辯證法則正好相反，不再是後者的僵化的道德教條或陳腐禮教。雙重否定可以看著是對符號態度完全的逆轉標準化。

P197

Anthropological Structures of the Imaginary

By Gilbert Durand

Translated by Springhero 雄伯