Plasticity spans a spectrum from fixed form to total malleability

Evidence

We can see it now: there are not just one but many plasticities of cerebral functioning. The interaction of these plastic modalities sketches an organization that does not at all correspond to traditional representations of the brain as a machine without autonomy, without suppleness, without becoming—representations that today have become true ”epistemological obstacles.” It is urgent that we affirm, against these representations, which no longer represent anything at all, that our brain is in part essentially what we do with it. Individual experience opens up, in the program itself, a dimension usually taken to be the very antithesis of the notion of a program: the historical dimension. Plasticity, between determinism and freedom, designates all the types of transformation deployed between the closed meaning of plasticity (the definitive character of form) and its open meaning (the malleability of form). It does this to such a degree that cerebral systems today appear as selfsculpted structures that, without being elastic or polymorphic, still tolerate constant self-reworking, differences in destiny, and the fashioning of a singular identity. — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 109

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines plasticity as occupying the span between determinism and freedom, giving form and receiving form — the precise definitional core the reader needs to catch substitution.
• DEEPTHINKING: Malabou’s core move: plasticity as a concept that simultaneously fixes and transforms form, neither elastic nor polymorphic — the paradigm-shifting definition that resists a one-line summary.
• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s stated purpose — this is the precise definition distinguishing plasticity (form-giving) from mere flexibility (form-receiving). — connects to: Hegel’s plasticity joins a capacity to receive form with a capacity to produce form — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 228; Plasticity is suppleness that is neither passion nor passivity — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 290; Plasticity’s future emerges from replaying rigid past forms — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1268 (+3 more)