Auto-differentiation is the exact operation that plasticity names

Evidence

If Hegel does introduce movement into substance, it is not because he is ‘infatuated’ with motion (a maniac for the dialectic) as his opponents seem to suspect, but because the principle of auto-differentiation is identical with the principle that allows subjectivity, through the element of time, to develop its concept. This claim helps us to picture more precisely the problem of a pure noetic habit or primal ις by which substance can make itself by itself. This is the very operation we call plasticity. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 475

Categorization

• DEFINE: Names plasticity as the operation whereby substance makes itself by itself through time — the book’s core term.
• XREF: The link to the reader’s brain-research interest: plasticity as self-constitution, not passive receptivity, maps onto neuronal self-shaping.