Plasticity and education

Abstract

This special issue started out as five philosophers of education's shared interest in Catherine Malabou's philosophy, and the realisation that it has occupied precious little space in philosophy of education so far. Curious to see where this interest could take us, we gathered around a common theme: 'what can philosophy of education learn from the exposure to Catherine Malabou's philosophy?' In this introduction, I will give an outline of Malabou's philosophy before introducing the articles of the issue. PlasticityMalabou's philosophy is centred around the concept 'plasticity'. In her philosophy, one can discern the contours of a new materialist ontology where change has a vital position. Aside from the obvious relevance for educational thinkingwhich must concern itself with change in some form -Malabou's philosophy is a fresh rethinking of form on the grounds of a Hegelian and deconstructive reading of neuroscience. Her philosophy might be called a semiotic materialism in that it sees plasticity both as a semiotic framework and semiotic structure (Hogstad, 2020a;Malabou, 2007), and suggests that the bodyrepresented by the brainis the seat and author of this framework (Malabou, 2014). The relationship between the material and the symbolic is thus recast as a symbiotic one, establishing form as having an aspect of each. Throughout her authorship she has engaged with this relationship, suggesting that form's capacity for plasticity might be the feature that allows and provides exchange between them (