Plasticity’s future emerges from replaying rigid past forms

Evidence

Hegel places face to face the two epochs which constitute the history of subjectivity. On one side, the epoch marked by the repetitions and habits inherent to the teleological process. On the other, the epoch dominated by the singular ‘once and only’, by the non-habitual, inseparable from the concept of time as external. This confrontation also presents the outline of the future which, henceforth, exists in the play of the habitual and the unusual, but no longer to be understood as two eras of philosophical thought, rather as the two faces, identical in a speculative sense, of one reality: completion. Hegel’s philosophy announces that the future, from now on, depends on the way the shapes and figures already present can be put back into play, on the way the extraordinary and unexpected can only arise out of the prose of the well-known and familiar. Plasticity fulfils its promise for the future with its treatment of a past that has become rigid: if it plasticizes that past – by solidifying or laminating it – it also explodes that past, through what the French call plasticage or bombing. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1268

Categorization

• DEFINE: Crystallizes the definition of plasticity as both shaping (solidifying/laminating) and destroying (plasticage) — the dual explosive and formative sense central to the whole reading.
• XREF: Plasticity as double movement — receiving and giving form, receiving and exploding — connects directly to Malabou’s later elaboration in ‘What Should We Do with Our Brain?’ where neuronal plasticity is both adaptation and the possibility of rupture. — connects to: Plasticity constitutes the unforeseen future within and of Hegel’s philosophy; Plastic development requires substance to contain its future actualizations virtually — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 477; Plasticity spans a spectrum from fixed form to total malleability — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 109 (+12 more)
• ADDENDUM: The idea that the future ‘can only arise out of the prose of the well-known and familiar’ parallels the grafting metaphor in ‘Grafting & Growth’ — new life emerges by working on what is already rooted and present.
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source

Broader Connections

• Plasticity holds together originary attachment and the capacity to abandon fixed form. #corroborates (0.90)
• Plasticity holds origin and self-abandonment together in one capacity #corroborates (0.85)
• Plasticity names the dialectical union of form-seizure and form-annihilation. #corroborates (0.85) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 247
• Plasticity means formative change through rupture, not smooth continuous adaptation #expands (0.82) — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 258
• Plasticity names the unity of spontaneity and receptivity in giving and receiving form #corroborates (0.82)
• Plasticity spans a spectrum from fixed form to total malleability #expands (0.80) — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 109
• Plasticity spans a graded range from determination to freedom #expands (0.80) — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 67
• Plasticity is not the same as polymorphous flexibility #expands (0.78) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 225
• Plasticity enables authentic temporality’s characteristics to be conceived #expands (0.75) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1274
• Flexibility is an unrooted notion while plasticity is a historically grounded concept #expands (0.75) — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 59