From the footnotes of Dan Ross’ introduction to Stiegler’s Neganthropocene comes this limpid definition (p. 271):
‘Transductive’, here, refers to an approach to thinking processes in which the terms of a relation cannot be understood as preceding the relation itself.
There is a danger with much ontology talk we encounter, especially in geographyland, for the ontological category of the thing to stand, almost static, in place of the necessary engagement with what is encountered in the world. In this sense, to think transductively, I suggest, is to follow a counterflow to the monolithic ontology talk that, for all of the appeals to vitality and the lively effervescence of the world, tends to fix things in catch-all concepts (such as ‘affect’, ‘atmosphere’ and other ‘a’s) without really engaging with the relations of the stuff of/under study. To ‘do’ transduction then might involve more than merely pointing it out – of which I am rather guilty.
That’s my quick and not very coherent take at the moment… I think this is actually a constructive form of critique – I believe there is a way forward in this kind of deconstructive thinking but it needs much more fleshing out.