Human subjectivity is constituted through self-forgetting, not self-presence

Evidence

Man does not have a substance. There is no human substance. The Hegelian man is above all a man of habits, and that means, paradoxically, a disappearing subject. The more closely habit is studied, the more it becomes clear that human subjectivity is constituted in self-forgetting; consciousness and will, under the influence of repeated practice, win their force through a kind of self-absenting. When man makes his entrance into the speculative narrative he does so in the guise of a farewell. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 605

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core of the plasticity thesis: man as habit-formed, self-absenting subject rather than substance-bearing agent.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s brain/plasticity work — habit as neural inscription that erases the habituated self it forms.
• DEEPTHINKING: Dense dialectical reversal: the subject wins force through self-absenting, entering the philosophical narrative as farewell — compact enough to sit with.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 605