Neuronal functioning has become the social’s very nature, not just its metaphor

Evidence

Like neuronal cohesion, contemporary corporate economic and social organization is not of a central or centralizing type but rests on a plurality of mobile and atomistic centers, deployed according to a connectionist model. In this sense, it appears that neuronal functioning has become the nature of the social even more than its naturalizing tool. — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 143

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes ‘naturalizing tool’ (science used to legitimate social order) from nature itself — a sharper version of the analogy being argued rather than asserted, keyed to the reader’s stated purpose.
• XREF: Connects to the plasticity/flexibility distinction: what is being naturalized here is precisely a network-based plasticity that corporate flexibility then claims to be.