Plastics, Plasticity, and the Plastic

ABSTRACT This article examines the development of the idea of “plasticity” by proposing two critical moments in its conceptual epigenesis: that of plastics, represented by Cudworth and Shaftesbury in the seventeenth century, and that of plasticity as elaborated by Catherine Malabou in the twenty-first century. With this framework in mind, the text explores how Ranjan Ghosh’s The Plastic Turn and his idea of “the plastic” transforms the ongoing epigenesis of the idea of “plasticity” in our philosophical imaginaries.