An organ acquires form by submitting to and binding its stimulus

Evidence

For example, an animal will form the habitus of sight by determining how luminous stimuli, otherwise scattered and diffuse, are reproduced on the privileged surface of its body. ‘The eye binds light, it is itself a bound light.’ The activity of binding difference (in this case, the perception of light) is dual. On the one hand it is contemplative, for vision is achieved only by seeing, hence by submitting the eye to the action of the sensible. But on the other hand, it is also active: for it is by submitting itself that the eye paradoxically acquires its form and exercises itself. In a certain sense, the eye is produced by the material it contracts and invests in during the process of contemplation. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 517 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

To form the concept of plasticity as it figures in Hegel’s philosophy requires first of all that we uncover the way in which Hegel himself constructs this idea. When we take this further, we find that three areas of meaning are mutually implicated. In each case that double connotation of the adjective ‘plastic’ reappears: a capacity to receive form and a capacity to produce form. It is this double signification which enables us to treat the adjective as itself a ‘speculative word’, in Hegel’s special sense. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 228 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Receptivity to stimuli is the very process by which organs acquire form — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 517; The eye acquires its form by submitting to what it perceives; Hegel’s plasticity joins a capacity to receive form with a capacity to produce form — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 228 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Receptivity to stimuli is the very process by which organs acquire form #corroborates (0.95) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 517
• The eye acquires its form by submitting to what it perceives #exemplifies (0.95)
• Hegel’s plasticity joins a capacity to receive form with a capacity to produce form #complicates (0.75) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 228
• The intellect’s capacity to receive and give form originates its plasticity #qualifies (0.75) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 401