The intellect’s capacity to receive and give form originates its plasticity
Evidence
In the first place, the passage presents the notion of what we can call the originary plasticity of νς The expressions πντα γ νεσθαι, πντα πιε!ν (the ‘becoming of all things’, the ‘making of all things’), express in turn the aptitude to be ‘fashioned by all’, or of ‘receiving form’, and the aptitude to ‘fashion all’, or to ‘give form (ε(δς)’. For Aristotle, it is a question of showing in the final instance the process of νησις νσεως, ‘knowing the known’, or of ‘the thinking of thinking’, which assumes the identity of thought with the process of thinking itself. If it is true that thought must be ‘ thinkable per se’, that it is not ‘in virtue of something other than itself that it is thinkable’, then it must be shown that it is, in a certain sense as stated by Hegel, the subject and object of itself, that which ‘suffers’ or submits itself to its own activity. The two verbs πσειν (‘to be acted upon’) and νεργε!ν (‘to act’), are on several occasions used by Aristotle to define the νς. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 401
Categorization
- DEFINE: Core definition of ‘originary plasticity’ — the double aptitude to be fashioned and to fashion — which is the foundational concept for the reader’s brain work.
- XREF: Plasticity as passive-receptive and active-forming directly grounds Malabou’s later account of neuronal plasticity; leads to the reader’s own brain research. — connects to: The body’s action on matter reveals qualities that already dwell latent within it — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1361; Plasticity names the concept’s reflexive power to both give and receive its own figures — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 68; The schema is the plastic form mediating giving and receiving — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 68 (+6 more)
- ADDENDUM: The receive-form/give-form double capacity resonates with the grafted tree metaphor in ‘Grafting & Growth’ — the stock both receiving the scion and giving it form.
- DEEPTHINKING: The unity of suffering and acting within a single capacity — thought as subject-as-object of its own activity — is dense enough to sit with for a long time.