Plasticity’s open sense means changing one’s form, not just receiving it.

Evidence

In the first case—the capacity to differentiate themselves into cells of the same tissue—stem cells are called multipotent. In the second case—the capacity to develop themselves into types of cells specific to other tissues—stem cells are called pluripotent. Stem-cell plasticity—which allows us to conceive of a sort of range of differentiation between multipotence and pluripotence—is an extremely striking example, perhaps the very paradigm, of the ”open” meaning of plasticity. According to this meaning, plasticity designates generally the ability to change one’s destiny, to inflect one’s trajectory, to navigate differently, to reform one’s form and not solely to constitute that form as in the ”closed” meaning. — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 65

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core definitional contrast: closed plasticity constitutes form, open plasticity reforms it — the exact axis the reader needs to catch flexibility-rebranding.
• XREF: Malabou’s later social critique (flexibility as docility) reads off this open vs closed distinction; relevant to Goldsmith-era workplace flexibility discourse the reader tracks. — connects to: The plastic individual imprints meaning only by being formed in return — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 591