REALITYISTHATWHICHDOESN'TEXIST

In all the languages of Europe, north and south alike, the word ‘thing’, whatever its form, has as its root or origin the word ‘cause’, taken from the realm of law, politics, or criticism generally speaking. As if objects themselves existed only according to the debates of an assembly or after a decision issued by a jury. Language wants the world to stem from language alone. At least this is what it says. (…)

Thus in Latin the word for ‘thing’ is res, from which we get reality, the object of judicial procedure or the cause itself, so that, for the Ancients, the accused bore the name reus because the magistrates were suing him. As if the only human reality came from tribunals alone. (…)

Here we shall see the miracle and find the solution to the ultimate enigma. The word ‘cause’ designates the root or origin of the word ‘thing’; causa, cosa, chose, or Ding . … The tribunal stages the very identity of cause and thing, of word and object, or the passage of one to the other by substitution. A thing emerges there.

( Michel Serres quoted by Bruno Latour )