Plasticity includes a closed sense of receiving a definitive, irreversible form.

Evidence

In mechanics, a material is called plastic if it cannot return to its initial form after undergoing a deformation. ”Plastic” in this sense is opposed to ”elastic.” Plastic material retains an imprint and thereby resists endless polymorphism. This is the case, for instance, with sculpted marble. Once the statue is finished, there is no possible return to the indeterminacy of the starting point. So plasticity designates solidity as much as suppleness, designates the definitive character of the imprint, of configuration, or of modification. According to this first limit or semantic extreme, plasticity, though not altogether assimilable to rigidity, marks a certain determination of form and imposes a (very strict) restriction on the capacity for deformation, re-formation, or explosion. — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 62

Categorization

• DEFINE: This is the load-bearing distinction for the reader’s goal: plasticity’s closed meaning is receiving-and-retaining form, not endlessly reshaping.
• XREF: Directly feeds the plasticity vs. flexibility distinction the reader wants to be able to catch — the ‘giving and receiving form’ definition starts here. — connects to: True plasticity requires already being formed, not merely receiving any shape. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1224; A closed system’s openness to modification while transforming itself is plasticity — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1283