7/29/2019 What Should We Do With Our Brain

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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2009

Catherine Malabou: What Should We DoWith Our Brain?

"To implicate consciousness, to ask what

we should do with our brain, means . . . to

attempt to develop a critique of what we

will call neuronal ideology. It is thus not a

just a matter of uncovering, in the name of

brain plasticity, a certain freedom of the

brain but rather, starting from as precise a

study as possible of the functioning of thisplasticity, to free this freedom, to

disengage it from a certain number of

ideological presuppositions that implicitly

govern the entire neuroscientific field and,

by a mirror effect, the entire field of politics - and in this way to

rescue philosophy from its irresponsible torpor." Malabou, who

teaches philosophy at the Universite de Paris X-Nanterre,

juxtaposes in her book philosophy and neuroscience, arguing that

"there can no longer be any philosophical, political, or scientific

approach to history that does not pass through a close analysis of

the neuronal phenomenon." We must intellectually respond to the

revolutionary discoveries of neuroscience and come to understand

how post-Fordist capitalism depends upon, yet constrains, the

potential of our brains. I'm always grateful that in my first year of

college as an undergraduate I took an honors course on

contemporary neuroscience that exposed me to the work of

Antonio Damasio and Gerald Edelmann far before I ever read a

word of theory, "naturalizing" the kind of move Malabou makes in

this volume. She begins by noting how common the concept of

"plasticity" is in neuroscience, and puts forth her own definition of

plasticity as the capability to both receive and give form, to be

receiver and creator. Contrasting traditional images of the adult

brain as a fixed and finished organ, neuroscience has discovered

three types of brain plasticity: "developmental plasticity,

modulational plasticity, and reparative plasticity." Although the

earliest development of the brain is strongly determined by

genetics (or else human brains would evolve in wildly different andnon-functional ways), in slightly later stages of early development

there is "a certain plasticity in the execution of the genetic

program," particularly as a result of the influence of the

individual's surroundings. In addition to this "developmental

7/29/2019 What Should We Do With Our Brain

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plasticity," "modulational plasticity" throughout the individual's

life allows for "synapses to modulate their efficacy and to modify

the force of their interconnections." Finally, through "reparative

plasticity" the brain changes due to the renewal of nerve cells and

the brain's compensation for lesions in the brain. As a result of

these three kinds of plasticity, each individual's brain (even those

of identical twins) will have undergone a unique development, so

that "no two brains are identical in respect to their history."

Malabou shows how this plasticity of the brain makes comparisons

to machines (such as the telephone or the computer) misguided.

Instead of portraying the brain as the controller at the top of a

hierarchical system, neuroscience shows how the brain functions

like an adaptable, delocalized network. Yet this is exactly how

current management theory portrays the post-Fordist firm

(Malabou draws heavily from Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello's

The New Spirit of Capitalism, which seems to be the fountainhead

of post-Fordist theory for French intellectuals these days). But

post-Fordist demands for "flexibility" have constrained how we

conceive of brain "plasticity," and neuroscientific work on brain

plasticity has come to naturalize and legitimize post-Fordist

ideology (i.e., our brains really want us to have insecure,

continuously demanding jobs instead of secure, well-defined

positions). For Malabou, flexibility focuses on the ability to receivea form, to passively adapt, but not, as in the case of plasticity, to

give a form, to "explode" into the new: "Flexibility is plasticity

minus its genius." We might see Malabou's book as

complementing, but also contesting, Paolo Virno and the

Autonomist's discussion of the role of "general intellect" in

post-Fordist capitalism. Capitalism currently invests in our brain's

plasticity, but attempts to reduce that plasticity to functional

flexibility. Yet unlike the Autonomists, Malabou is able to make

this argument without any reference to language or the primary

importance of language to humanity. Up to this point in her

argument, Malabou is on strong ground, but in the final chapter of

the book she makes some moves that while justifiable may not

convince all her readers. She engages in-depth with the work of

Antonio Damasio and his theory of how a proto-self is "translated"

into a core self and then ultimately into conscience, or the

"transition from the neuronal to the mental". Damasio argues that

as the brain maps the state of the body it simultaneously maps its

own state, and that modification of this latter map can lead to

"second-order maps" that eventually result in consciousness.

Malabou takes issue with the assumption of a natural harmony

between these maps, between the neuronal and the mental, which

is evident in Damasio's use of terms such as "translation" or

"narrative" to describe the transition from one level of

organization to another. Here the distinction between flexibility

and plasticity reappears, as Malabou argues we need to exploit

more of our brain's capability not just to receive but to give form.

Malabou, who has written a book on Hegel, introduces a dialecticaldefinition of identity, in which the transition from neuronal to

mental occurs through "negation and resistance," "gaps and leaps,"

and creative "explosions" rather than "translation." Malabou's

sudden turn to dialectics rightfully serves to critique a certain

tendency in neuroscience, but it feels a bit arbitrary (and even a bit

routine as far as theory goes) and not quite as groundbreaking as

the ideas presented in the rest of the book. Malabou keeps a rather

specific focus on neuroscience throughout, but I wonder how work

on complex systems and emergence might inform the claims she

makes here (especially since this theory, like neuroscience, is

regularly called upon to naturalize post-Fordism)? Malabou claims

the brain contains a tension between its "homeostatic" function

and its "self-generative" one, between "maintenance" and "creative

ability." But would it be possible to transition from homeostasis to

self-generation without rupture via something like emergence?