Modern subjectivity reverses Greek plasticity by making essence become accidental through kenosis

Evidence

The Greek concept of ‘form-creation’ (Formtätigkeit) assumes that selfdetermination is to be thought in terms of the becoming essential of the accident which finds sensuous representation in the ‘exemplary individual’. On the other hand, the modern concept of plasticity seems to join itself with a concept of self-determination conceived as the becoming accidental of essence, the very development in which the fundamental significance of the Incarnation is expressed. Kenosis is the movement through which God, by positing Himself in exteriority and becoming alien to Himself, achieves the fulfilment of His being and becomes at once predicate and accident. Here we find the modern meaning of subjectivity, characterized by the relation the subject forms with itself through the mediation of its other. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 859

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sharply delineates Greek form-creation (accident becoming essential) from modern plasticity (essence becoming accidental) — a precise conceptual axis the reader can test against other accounts of modern selfhood.
• XREF: Directly relevant to the MOC thread: this inversion of the plastic relation between substance and accident may be the lever for how the ‘enemy’ figure flips between passive screen and explosive agency. — connects to: Christ is not a plastic individual in the Greek substantival sense — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 835