THE PHENOMENON OF BRAIN PLASTICITY 19tion generated by the capacities of biology. Whereas flexibility presents an
endlessly polymorphous, ultimately “reproductive and normative” subject
(2008, 72), true plasticity is more rebellious. It refers to the brain’s literal
fashioning and refashioning, and contains a tension within itself, culmi-
nating in a “disobedience to every form, a refusal to submit to a model”
(2008, 6). I find the divisions Malabou makes between epistemology and
ontology (and between normativity and freedom) far too neat. However,
they highlight the two matters of concern in contemporary discussions of
the plastic brain that I want to address.
Construct, Property, or Phenomenon?
The first concern is whether the essence of neural plasticity can be ex-
tracted from how it is represented in science and everyday life. Naturalized
philosophy often treats empirical research as more or less neutral informa-
tion that can ground theories about human essence or experience. Mala-
bou, for example, forswears any truck with neuroscientific knowledge by
simply declaring herself a materialist, a stance that disallows even “the least
separation” (2012, 212) between the brain and mind. Her assumption is that
if one is a materialist, one must accept the neurobiological facts. If there
is something wrong with neuroscientific knowledge, it is because the facts
are being distorted or appropriated. By contrast, social constructionists
see such representations as inextricable from the facts themselves. Even
though they don’t usually deny the existence of material realities, social
constructionist arguments treat scientific objects as theorizable only in rep-
resentational terms, as the effects of discourse. Cynthia Kraus, for example,
asks not what we should do with the brain, but rather “what kind of social
order and conceptions of human agency are being co- produced through
knowledge claims about brain plasticity?” (2012, 253). In her view, appeals
to plasticity, which are found not only in naturalized philosophy but also,
as I discuss later, in feminist empiricist treatments of neuroscience, repro-
duce the cerebral subject who is defined by and reduced to the brain. Kraus
argues that feminists should rethink whether plasticity is the “right tool for
the job” (251) of combating biological determinism.
On the one side, plasticity is a biological property that is described in
neuroscientific research but is essentially untouched by its representations.
This stance allows Malabou to theorize the biological body despite its epis-