Plasticity for Heidegger means strength and endurance, not mere malleability

Evidence

Heidegger, in a seminar on Aristotle’s Metaphysics VIII, did devote a few remarks to the notion of plasticity. He stresses the meaning of the adjective ‘plastic’ in its connotation of ‘strong’, ‘resistant’. Something plastic ‘does not refuse itself … it can uphold’. He continues: ‘The lump of clay tolerates something; it allows the formation, that is, it is malleable (bildsam, plastique): plasticity5 as a way of being for force.’ The ‘suffering’ (erleidet, pâtir) described by Heidegger is also an active straining towards the future. We call ‘plastic’ only that ‘to which, generally speaking, something can happen’. Thus its orientation is towards the event and it is capable of withstanding the violence that comes with it. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1275

Categorization

• DEFINE: Key definition: plasticity’s passive ‘suffering’ is simultaneously an active straining toward the future — the double valence of plastic (receiving form and giving/resisting).
• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s brain work: plasticity as simultaneous endurance and openness — the capacity to withstand what happens to one while remaining formative. — connects to: Hegel’s temporalizing plasticity resists Heidegger’s charge of vulgar time — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1272; Plasticity means both receiving and giving form, unlike mere malleability — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 39; Heideggerian suffering already contains an active plastic straining toward the future — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1276

Broader Connections

• Plasticity means both receiving and giving form, unlike mere malleability #expands (0.90) — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 39