Repetitive practice converts contingent accident into essential form for plastic individuals

Evidence

If the animal is not able fully to present the genus, the flaw is not in the genus, because the genus will always be in excess over its individual way of being: rather it is due to the accidental nature of the example. Because the individual animal is nothing but a natural accident it can only respond to the genus in its substance by means of another accident: the generation of another animal. … What in the beginning was merely an accidental fact – Plato’s commitment to philosophy, Pericles’ to politics, Phidias’ to sculpture – is changed through continual repetition of the same gestures, through practice, achieving the integrity of a ‘form’ (eidos). Effected by habit, the singularity of the ‘plastic individual’ becomes an essence a posteriori. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 597

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s MOC thread: habit as the conversion device from passive plasticity into formed agency — how ‘plastic receptivity’ tips over into durable, self-generated form. — connects to: Human formative power gives substance a face by making accidents essential — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 603
• DEFINE: Defines ‘plastic individual’ as one whose style synthesizes genus-essence with habitual accident, making essence a posteriori.