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Plasticity: The Promise of Explosion
Catherine Malabou is one of the foremost, most innovative intelligences working in contemporary French philosophy today. Her work articulates a coherent conceptualisation of ‘plasticity’ by merging recent neurobiology and medicinal sciences with the history of philosophy and political theory. Across the essays gathered in 'Plasticity: The Promise of Explosion', Malabou carves a philosophical space between structuralism, deconstruction, cognitive psychology, psychoanalysis and speculative realism. By demonstrating the plastic transformability at the heart of these disciplines, a change that always promises future explosion, Malabou, as a female philosopher, also articulates the need to ‘change difference’ within patriarchal concepts of tradition itself.
- GenresPhilosophy
344 pages, Paperback
Published April 26, 2022
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103 people want to read
About the author
Catherine Malabou
61 books127 followersCatherine Malabou (b. 1959) is a French philosopher. She is a professor of philosophy at The European Graduate School / EGS and professor of modern European philosophy at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP) at Kingston University, London. She is known for her work on plasticity, a concept she culled from Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, which has proved fertile within contemporary economic, political, and social discourses. Widely regarded as one of the most exciting figures in what has been called “The New French Philosophy,” Malabou’s research and writing covers a range of figures and issues, including the work of Hegel, Freud, Heidegger, and Derrida; the relationship between philosophy, neuroscience, and psychoanalysis; and concepts of essence and difference within feminism.
Born in Sidi Bel Abbès, Algeria, Catherine Malabou began her advanced studies at the Université Paris-Sorbonne before attending the prestigious École normale supérieure de Fontenay-Saint-Cloud, where, in 1994, she submitted her dissertation on G.W.F. Hegel under the direction of Jacques Derrida. Her thesis was published in 1996 under the title L’avenir de Hegel: Plasticité, temporalité, dialectique (The Future of Hegel: Plasticity, Temporality and Dialectic, 2005) with a long preface by Derrida, whom she would later co-author La Contre-allée (1999; Counterpath, 2004). Before arriving at Kingston University, Malabou became assistant professor at the Université Paris Ouest Nanterre in 1995 and, as a frequent lecturer in the USA, has taught at UC Berkeley, The New School in New York City, New York State University at Buffalo, the University of Wisconsin in Madison, UCLA, Johns Hopkins, and, most recently, UC Irvine.
Catherine Malabou’s philosophical work forges new connections and intellectual networks that imaginatively leap across existing synaptic gaps between, for example, continental philosophy and neuroscience; the philosophy of neuroscience and the critique of capitalism; neuroscience and psychoanalysis; and continental and analytic philosophy (notably Kant). As well, her work is explosive and iconoclastic, shattering perceived understandings of Hegel, feminism and gender, and the implications of post-structuralism.
Starting with her 2004 book, Que faire de notre cerveau? (What Should We Do With Our Brain?, 2009), Catherine Malabou has argued passionately and provocatively for a connection between continental philosophy and empirical neuroscience. She centers her argument on a highly original interpretation of the concept of plasticity, an interpretation that she first uncovered in her reading of Hegel’s dialectic. Plasticity refers to the capacity both to receive form and to give form. Although the concept of plasticity is central to neuroscience, Malabou’s work shows that neuroscientists and lay people often misunderstand the basic plasticity of the brain, succumbing to an ideology that focuses solely on its capacity to receive form, that is, the capacity of the brain to be shaped in and through its experience of the world to the exclusion of its creative, form-giving power. In other words, the reigning ideology that governs both the neuroscientific community and the broader culture substitutes flexibility for plasticity, and flexibility, Malabou warns us, “is plasticity minus its genius.” The emphasis on flexibility also fits all too neatly with the demands of capitalism under neoliberalism, which demands efficiency, flexibility, adaptability and versatility as conditions of employability in a post-Fordist economy. The creative, form-giving power of the brain—its genius—consists in its explosive capacity, a capacity that unleashes new possibilities, and herein also lies the capacity for resistance. In her conclusion, Catherine Malabou writes: “To ask ‘What should we do with our brain?’ is above all to visualize the possibility of saying no to an afflicting economic, political, and mediatic culture that celebrate
Born in Sidi Bel Abbès, Algeria, Catherine Malabou began her advanced studies at the Université Paris-Sorbonne before attending the prestigious École normale supérieure de Fontenay-Saint-Cloud, where, in 1994, she submitted her dissertation on G.W.F. Hegel under the direction of Jacques Derrida. Her thesis was published in 1996 under the title L’avenir de Hegel: Plasticité, temporalité, dialectique (The Future of Hegel: Plasticity, Temporality and Dialectic, 2005) with a long preface by Derrida, whom she would later co-author La Contre-allée (1999; Counterpath, 2004). Before arriving at Kingston University, Malabou became assistant professor at the Université Paris Ouest Nanterre in 1995 and, as a frequent lecturer in the USA, has taught at UC Berkeley, The New School in New York City, New York State University at Buffalo, the University of Wisconsin in Madison, UCLA, Johns Hopkins, and, most recently, UC Irvine.
Catherine Malabou’s philosophical work forges new connections and intellectual networks that imaginatively leap across existing synaptic gaps between, for example, continental philosophy and neuroscience; the philosophy of neuroscience and the critique of capitalism; neuroscience and psychoanalysis; and continental and analytic philosophy (notably Kant). As well, her work is explosive and iconoclastic, shattering perceived understandings of Hegel, feminism and gender, and the implications of post-structuralism.
Starting with her 2004 book, Que faire de notre cerveau? (What Should We Do With Our Brain?, 2009), Catherine Malabou has argued passionately and provocatively for a connection between continental philosophy and empirical neuroscience. She centers her argument on a highly original interpretation of the concept of plasticity, an interpretation that she first uncovered in her reading of Hegel’s dialectic. Plasticity refers to the capacity both to receive form and to give form. Although the concept of plasticity is central to neuroscience, Malabou’s work shows that neuroscientists and lay people often misunderstand the basic plasticity of the brain, succumbing to an ideology that focuses solely on its capacity to receive form, that is, the capacity of the brain to be shaped in and through its experience of the world to the exclusion of its creative, form-giving power. In other words, the reigning ideology that governs both the neuroscientific community and the broader culture substitutes flexibility for plasticity, and flexibility, Malabou warns us, “is plasticity minus its genius.” The emphasis on flexibility also fits all too neatly with the demands of capitalism under neoliberalism, which demands efficiency, flexibility, adaptability and versatility as conditions of employability in a post-Fordist economy. The creative, form-giving power of the brain—its genius—consists in its explosive capacity, a capacity that unleashes new possibilities, and herein also lies the capacity for resistance. In her conclusion, Catherine Malabou writes: “To ask ‘What should we do with our brain?’ is above all to visualize the possibility of saying no to an afflicting economic, political, and mediatic culture that celebrate
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 11, 2025
เป็นหนังสือรวมบทความสั้นๆของผู้เขียนหลายชิ้นภายใต้ธีมเรื่อง plasticity ซึ่งเป็นไอเดียใหญ่ของผู้เขียน สนุกมาก พออ่านไล่เรียงจากบทความชิ้นแรกๆ ก็จะเห็นได้ถึงลำดับพัฒนาการทางความคิดที่นำมาสู่แนวคิดเรื่อง plasticity ซึ่งเป็นการต่อยอดแนวคิดเรื่อง deconstruction ของเดอริดา ภายใต้ทิศทางความคิดแบบเฮเกลเลี่ยน-ไฮเด็กเกอร์เรียน มีบทความที่ชอบมากๆในเล่มนี้อยู่สองชิ้น ชิ้นหนึ่งจะพูดถึงการกลับไปอ่าน the republic ของเพลโตในบรรพสิบ ซึ่งเล่าเรื่องโอดิสซีอุสและวิธีการที่ผู้เขียนตีความเพื่อดึงเอาความโดดเด่นของวิถีชีวิตทางปรัชญาในฐานะวิถีชีวิตที่สามารถต่อต้านอำนาจขององค์อธิปัตย์ที่อยู่บนฐานของการประกาศสภาวะยกเว้นได้ ส่วนบทความอีกชิ้นจะเป็นข้อวิพากษ์ในประเด็นเรื่องชีวการเมืองซึ่งผู้เขียนได้วิจารณ์นักปรัชญาซึ่งได้ชื่อว่าเป็นคนนำเสนอประเด็นเรื่องชีวการเมืองขึ้นมาอย่างฟูโกต์และอกัมเบนว่าทั้งคู่ยังไม่ radical พอ เพราะแม้จะให้ความสำคัญกับชีวิตและร่างกายในฐานะหน่วยของอำนาจ แต่ชีวิตและร่างกายดังกล่าวก็กลับถูกอธิบายด้วยศัพท์แสงทางสัญลักษณ์จนมีสถานะเป็นแค่ symbolic life ที่ไม่ได้สะท้อนวัตถุสภาพที่เป็นจริงของร่างกายและชีวิต ซึ่งแตกต่างจากผู้เขียนที่ใช้แนวคิดเรื่อง plasticity เป็นฐานในการศึกษาประสาทวิทยาและชีววิทยาปัจจุบันโดยเชื่อมโยงเข้ากับโจทย์ทางปรัชญาและการเมืองซึ่งทำให้แนวคิดเรื่องชีวการเมืองมีความสดใหม่ เต็มไปด้วยพลวัตรและไม่ติดอยู่กับกรอบทางปรัชญาที่ไม่ต้องตรงกับสภาพจริง
โดยรวมๆแล้วสนุก เป็นหนังสือที่แนะนำสำหรับคนที่สนใจแนวคิดใหม่ๆในปรัชญาภาคพื้นทวีป หรือคนที่อยากจะศึกษาบูรณาการระหว่างปรัชญากับวิทยาศาสตร์
โดยรวมๆแล้วสนุก เป็นหนังสือที่แนะนำสำหรับคนที่สนใจแนวคิดใหม่ๆในปรัชญาภาคพื้นทวีป หรือคนที่อยากจะศึกษาบูรณาการระหว่างปรัชญากับวิทยาศาสตร์
July 1, 2025
Brilliant work, entirely readable and helpful in seeing a far broader picture of plasticity beyond biology and medicine.
April 2, 2025
Li só o ensaio "Are There Still Traces? Memory and the Obsolescence of the Paradigm of Inscription"
Li mais dois ensaios: Epigenesis of the Text: New Paths in Biology and Hermeneutics e Can We Relinquish the Transcendental?
Li mais dois ensaios: Epigenesis of the Text: New Paths in Biology and Hermeneutics e Can We Relinquish the Transcendental?
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews