Habit is an intentionally-produced alteration that defines how humans acquire form

Evidence

Habit is the process whereby the contingent becomes essential. Man can ‘present the genus’to the degree that habit is the unforeseen element of the genus. Habit, then, appears as the future of the undifferentiated genus. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 601 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The difference between these two views turns upon contrastive understandings of the relationship between bodily behavior and the pious self: for Amna, performative behavior may signify a pious self but does not necessarily form it. For the women I worked with, bodily acts (like weeping in prayer), when performed repeatedly, both in public and private, endowed the self with certain qualities: bodily behavior was therefore not so much a sign of interiority as it was a means of acquiring its potentiality. I use the term “potentiality” here in its Aristotelian meaning, in which it does not suggest a generic faculty or power, but is linked to the abilities one acquires through specifi kinds of training and knowledge. This usage of “potentiality” implies that in order to be good at something one undergoes a teleological program of volitional training that presupposes an exemplary path to knowledge-knowledge that one comes to acquire through assiduous schooling and practice. — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 1022 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Habit etymologically converts having into a way of being — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 384; Habit is the plastic operation rendering the body fully pervious; Habit converts learned subjection into free action — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 404 (+14 more)

Related

• Habit transforms contingent acts into essential determinations of being. (similarity 0.90)
• Habit is the process whereby contingent determinations become essential (similarity 0.90)
• Habit etymologically converts having into a way of being (similarity 0.88)
• Habit is the plastic operation rendering the body fully pervious (similarity 0.88)
• Habit, following Aristotle, is an alteration that does not corrupt but forms spirit. (similarity 0.88)
• Habit is the organic being’s effort to maintain unity through synthesizing differences (similarity 0.87)
• Habit produces the plastic character making man both universal and individual. (similarity 0.86)
• Habit is spirit’s mechanism for converting resistance into supple instruments. (similarity 0.86)
• Habit makes the soul regain a second nature (similarity 0.86)
• Habit is spirit’s reduction of nature into possessable logical determinations (similarity 0.85)
• Man’s habit-forming power exemplifies spirit’s incarnation in time. (similarity 0.85)
• Habit unites change with the preservation of its modifications. (similarity 0.85)
• Habit is a genuine plasticity translating psychic and somatic into one another (similarity 0.85)
• Habit belongs to every organic being, not only humans. (similarity 0.84)
• Habit produces the plastic individual as a unity of soul and body (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• Habit transforms contingent acts into essential determinations of being. #corroborates (0.85) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 601
• Habit is the organic being’s effort to maintain unity through synthesizing differences #complicates (0.80)
• Repeated bodily practices form the self rather than merely express it #expands (0.80) — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 1022
• Habit is the preservation of a first modification without repetition of the modification #qualifies (0.75) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 502
• Habits are acquired socially and deeply rooted, not instinctive #expands (0.70) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 164