Habit precedes and results from the practice it makes possible

Evidence

The process of θεωρε!ν, a verb which in this context means both ‘to contemplate’ and to ‘exercise’, elucidates this odd play of time which links virtuality and actualization. Θεωρε!ν is a circle. The pupil learns while contemplating the teaching. Yet this contemplation is already and by itself an exercise, a practice. It is not something to be put into practice only when the pupil has become ‘practised’. From this it is obvious that ις is as much the result as the condition of the exercise. If it rightfully precedes the actualization and seems to be something that has already happened beforehand, it is also the task of this actualization, since one must practise and hence already have actualized an aptitude in order that habit (ις) may come into being. If the novice always finds himself in an impossible situation at the start, caught between the contribution of spontaneity and the contribution of receptivity, it is this impossible bind which reveals time’s second nature, its chronology suspending chronology. 2Εις is a kind of virtuality engaged in three extases of time at once, without one dominating the others: the past (habit is prior to its being put to work), the present (habit is itself a modality of presence), and the future (habit takes the form of a task which must be fulfilled, of an expectation that rules the direction of what is to come). — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 488

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines hexis as a virtuality spanning all three ecstases of time simultaneously — the core temporal paradox of habit.
• XREF: This temporal loop of habit — present in advance as condition and only as task to be fulfilled — is the root structure of plasticity as she will apply it to the brain (condition of change that only exists as that change). — connects to: Habit is the process whereby contingent determinations become essential — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 601; Habit transforms contingent acts into essential determinations of being. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 601; Habit unites change with the preservation of its modifications. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 494 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Habit is the process whereby contingent determinations become essential #expands (0.75) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 601
• Habit transforms contingent acts into essential determinations of being. #expands (0.75) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 601
• Habit unites change with the preservation of its modifications. #expands (0.70) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 494
• Habit is the organic being’s effort to maintain unity through synthesizing differences #expands (0.70)