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The Future of Hegel: Plasticity, Temporality, Dialectic Author(s): Catherine Malabou and Lisabeth During Source: Hypatia, Vol. 15, No. 4, Contemporary French Women Philosophers (Autumn, 2000), pp. 196-220 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of Hypatia, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3810686 Accessed: 10/02/2010 15:51
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The Future Hegel: of Dialectic1 Plasticity, Temporality,

CATHERINEMALABOU Translated Lisabeth by During

At the centerof Catherine's Malabou's study of Hegel is a defenseof Hegel's relationto timeand thefuture. Whilemanyreaders, following Kojeve,have taken the to be announcing end of history,Malaboufindsa moresuppleimpulse, Hegel She thread concept "plasthe of opento thenew, theunexpected. takesas herguiding andshowshowHegel'sdialectic-introducing sculptor's intophilosothe art ticity," Malabouis a cannyandfaithful by for phy-is motivated thedesire transformation. andallowsherclassic"maitre" speak,if not against owngrain,at least to his reader, a tradition attached closure system.Malabou's too to and Hegelis a "plastic" against not a nostalgic thinker, metaphysician.

THE PROBLEMATIC INTRODUCTION: A PHILOSOPHY "THINGOFTHEPAST"? A. IS HEGEL'S

The Futureof Hegel is a title that presents itself in the affirmative,as if it knows there is a positive answer to the question it anticipates, "DoesHegel have a future?" Inevitably,at the end of this century,the question must still be posed. For in this time, philosophy, while acknowledging the stature of G. W. F Hegel and its debt to his thought, has suspectedspeculative idealism of submitting to a totalizing or even a totalitarian structure. If speculative philosophy has not been entirely rejected, it has been at the very least kept at a distance. It is impossible, therefore, to consider Hegel's future today as something alreadyguaranteed,as an establishedand recognizedfact. This futureitself needs to happen. It remainsto be demonstrated,and to be examined. Such an examination is what the present work intends to provide.
Hypatia vol. 15, no. 4 (Fall 2000) by Lisabeth During

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By "futureof Hegel," one must understand first of all the future of his (avenir)has the ordinarymeaning of the time to come philosophy. "Future" the time yet ahead. Etymologyconfirmsthis connection: the future (futur), (la-venir) means that which is to come (ad-vient).But it denotes also that which is capable of lasting:to "havea future"is to be capable of having a posterity.Now, and this is the fundamentalproblem,can the philosophy of Hegel have a genuine posterity?Can it still hold out a promise?Can it still cause a stir?Can it continue to make an impact on the tendencies of our times (commentpourrait-elle orienter temps),when time has shown it to be an en... les that terprise bringstimeto an end? Time: it's with time that everything began; it is because of time that the divorce between Hegel and contemporaryphilosophy was announced. To a certain degreethe famousconclusion to the Phenomenology Mindsigned the of death sentence of Hegelianism: Time is the Notion itself that is thereand which presents itself to consciousnessas empty intuition; for this reason Spirit necessarilyappearsin Time, and it appearsinTime just as long as it has not grasped pureNotion, i.e., has not annulled Time. It its is the outer,intuited pure Self which is not grasped the Self, by the merely intuited Notion; when this latter graspsitself it sets aside its Time-form(hebtseineZeitform auf), comprehendsthis intuiting, and is a comprehendedand comprehending intuiting, Time, therefore, appearsas the destiny and necessity of Spirit that is not yet complete within itself (der nicht in sich vollendetist). (Hegel 1977,487; Hegel 1941, 2:305;Hegel 1970, 3:584-85) Many interpretershave concluded from this discussion that time was for Hegel nothing but a momentto be passedby. And it does appearthat time itself, unwilling to forgive absolute knowledge for having ordained its dialectical supersession,has demandedreparations.This demand is articulatedmost powerfullyby Martin Heidegger,who arguesthat the time transcended(aufnotion hebt)by spiritat the moment of absoluteknowledgeis simplythe vulgar of time. The "vulgarunderstandingof time" is a conception that Heidegger believes has dominatedthe entire historyof metaphysicsand has now come to an end with the completion of that epoch. Heidegger'sstereotypereaches its radicalconclusion in a paraphrase: "TheHegelian notion of time represents,as no one has properlynoted, the most radicaldevelopment at the level of the concept of the ordinaryunderstandingof time" (Heidegger 1984, 428).2 Aristotle was the first to give conceptual elaboration to this "ordinary of as understanding time,"which he understands a sequenceof "nows," passing without beginning or end and makingup the uniformflux within which the by sequence of events unfolds: "Time appearsto the vulgar understandingas a

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successionof nows constantly "present-at-hand," passby and arriveat the that same moment. Time is understoodas a sequence, as a "flux" nows, like the of "streamof time" (Heidegger 1984, 422). In Heidegger'sview, the paragraphs devoted to time in the Encyclopedia thePhilosophical Sciences of simplyreiterate termby term the Aristotelian problematicof the "stigme"("point") developed in Book IV of the Physics.Hegel fulfillsthe classical idea of the instantaneous It (Punklichkeit). is Hegel who by determiningit conceptually as "punctuality" maintains that: The negativity which relates itself to space as point (diesichals Punkt auf den Raum bezieht)and develops its determinations within it as line and plane, exists also as somethingfor-itselfand for its determinations in the sphere of exterality (des Aufersichsein); at the same time as positing those determinations yet in the external space, it appearsindifferent to the immobile of Nebeneinander) space. Posited thus juxtapositions(dasruhige is time. (Hegel 1970, 1:229) for-itself,negativity A spatialdetermination-the point-serves to characterizea temporaldetermination-the instant. But such a concept of time, seeming to reducetemporality to nothing but the form of juxtaposition, strikes us today as a temporality strippedof all future. The ordinaryunderstandingof time is what constitutes for Heidegger the unity of the philosophical tradition summed up for him in the name "metaphysics."This tradition conforms to an understandingof Being reduced to "presence"(ousia, Anwesenheit),thus privileging the present tense (Gegenwart)with respect to the other dimensions of time. Fromthat perspective,the past and future must necessarilyappearas either a present time which is just past,3or a present which is to come ("a not yet now"). To conceive time as a homogenous milieu in which things occur-a milieu in which nothing that happens can truly come unexpectedly (survenir)-represents for Heidegger the dominant view in philosophy from the Pre-Socraticsto Husserl. Hegel stands out from the other philosophersbecause he takes to its logical conclusion this traditionalprivileging of the present. In the speculative conception it of time, the futureis not even a timelikeothertimes: lacksthe powerto preserve to the lead-that is to say, the ontological priority-of the itself, giving way past understoodas the previousmode of the present. In his lecturesof 1930 on Hegel'sPhenomenology Spirit, Heideggerclaims of about having been, but never that "[u]ndoubtedly Hegel occasionally speaks about the future.This silence fits with the fact that (for him) the past is itself the decisive characterof time, and for a good reason:time is both the passing itself and what passes;it has alwayspassedaway"(Heidegger 1988, 82; translation modified).4

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Time in Hegel'sthought is understoodas the past tense of spirit:spiritmust into time in orderto fulfill its own identity as absolute, pass over (ubergehen) eternal, and in itself. That identity, in its turn, is itself a past but a past not the yet temporallypast.5It is the timeless antiquity of "presence," "Parousia" of the absolute. From its standpoint, everything that occurs can be only the indication of what has alreadycome to pass;everything still in the future is simply a potential returnto self. In fact, for Hegel, isn't it the case that everythingwhich occurshas done so too late?Isn'tyouth itself, in its verynovelty, alreadybelated?In the Philosophy Sciences,at the moment where he of Spiritof The Encyclopedia Philosophical of "the natural series of the ages of life," Hegel demonstratesprecisely analyses that the characteristicof youth is to believe in the future, to think that the world is not yet all it really is: "The exalted spiritof the youth does not recognize that the substantialuniverse, in its essence, has alreadyachieved in this world its development and its actuality"(Hegel 1971, 55). The youth must wait to growold to understandthat the world"possesses absolutepowerto the actualizeitself and that it has done so in ourtime; that it is not so impotent that it needs firstto await its effective realization"(Hegel 1971, 55). The absolute does not wait, has never been expected (ne s'estjamaisattendu), will never be awaited;the intense turning towardsthe unexpected (l'inas attendu)is only one of youth'sillusions,one which Hegel himself remembers his own before the crisisof Frankfurt. too late. In its twilight discourse,at But the beginning of its night, philosophymay be nothing but the announcement of this truth: it is too late for the future. This announcement bringswith it a feeling of constriction, as if ontology has closed us in. The System thus seems to be a tight loop which envelops everything-all exteriority,all alterity,all surprise. Hegel assertsthat spirithas no absolute other than itself, for the absolutethereis no absolutealterity: "For spirit, nothing exists which is absolutelyother than itself."That is why "[a]ll action of spirit is nothing but a graspingof itself, and the aim of all genuine science is only this, to know that spirit recognizesin itself everything there is in heaven and on earth"(Hegel 1971, 1). Spirit, whose task is to grasp itself, to anticipate the finding of itself in everything that is now and is to come, can never encounter anything wholly other, can never come face to face, in a sense, with the event. What place, therefore,is there in Hegelian thought for the question of the future,if everything has alreadybeen permeatedby spirit and, in this fashion, alreadycompleted? Scattered throughoutrecent philosophical writing, we find no shortageof analysesdrawingattention to this arrested,congealed, mortifiedcharacterof speculativethought. Alexandre Kojevehimself, althoughcommitted to stressing the timeliness of Hegelian thought as a means with which to think the

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future,nonetheless defines absolute knowledge in termsof "the end of time." Now is there any temporality which can correspond to this "end of time" except time's stasis in the congealed form of a perpetual present?Heidegger agrees:"The Hegelian presentation of the true notion of being ... with what it says about time, it is nothing other than a farewell to time as the route towardsspirit which is eternity"(Heidegger 1988, 147).6 Has Hegel's "farewell" time reversed into a farewell of time to Hegel? to Indeed, is not time as it exists for speculative philosophy not actually time at of all, but rather the flattening or leveling-down (Nivellierung) time itself, of that genuine time called by Heidegger "primordial Primordial temporality"? time can not be conceptualizedthrough the present, for its most fundamental "exstasis" the future.Primordialtemporality,Heideggerwrites, "temporis out alizes itself primarily of the future"(1996, 329). Thus the authentic future, in Heidegger,is no longera simplemoment of time, but is conflatedin a certain way with time itself. I do not intend to stage a confrontation between the Hegelian and Heideggereanconceptions of time. However, it is impossibleto be unawareof the changes in the way the futurehas been thought about over the course of the twentieth century.If we were to ignore,so to speak,the "future life"of the idea of the future,then we would be ourselvesguilty of "leveling-down" that future in a sense, lagging behind it. and, Indeed the readingventured here is far from wanting to be reactionaryor of nostalgic. The success, the "future" this approachwill depend on its capacto remain open to those argumentsthat oppose it. In particularit must reity main open to that analysisaccordingto which the absence of a conception of the futurein Hegel implies the absence of a futurefor the philosophyof Hegel. To say,with Heidegger,that Hegel never speaksabout the future amounts to that saying that Hegel does not have a future.Against this, by affirming indeed the present work contests the validity of Heidegthereis a "future Hegel," of ger'sassertion,all the while acknowledgingthe significanceit is owed, as well as the philosophical concerns it continues to provoke.
OF B. THE PROMISE PLASTICITY

With this end in view, we intend to construct a concept, that of "plasticity,"as foreshadowedin our title: "The Futureof Hegel: Plasticity,Temporality, Dialectic."To "forma concept" in the sense intended here means firstof all to take up a notion (plasticity), which has a defined and delimited role in the philosophy of Hegel, only in orderto transformit into the sort of comprehensive concept that can "grasp" (saisir)the whole. Here the double sense of grasp, is and "taking" (prendre) "understanding" (comprendre), authorizedby the etyof the word"concept."Transforming mology plasticity into a concept is a mat-

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ter of showing that plasticity "captures" (prend)the philosophy of Hegel and allows the readerto "comprehend" appearingat one and the same time as a it, structureand as a condition of intelligibility. To forma concept meansin the second place to develop to the fullest extent an example (une instance)capable of impartinga form to that which it grasps. Hegel indeed assertsthis many times: if the concept is a logical form, it must not be consideredlike an empty receptacle, ratheras a powerwhich can fashion its own content. By giving plasticity a mediating position between "future"and "temporality," title: "TheFutureof Hegel: Plasticity,Temporality, my will Dialectic," alreadyindicates that plasticity be envisaged as the "instance" which givesform to the future and time in Hegel's philosophy.That is to say, their relationshipis constructedin the mode of plasticity;time and the future are mutuallyinvolved in a dialogicalprocessgovernedby plasticity.Fromthis it follows that the concepts of the future and of plasticity need to be treated concurrently:one clarifyingthe other as a title is clarifiedby its subtitle. This relation of "synonymy" turned around in the second place into a is relation of asymmetry. Indeed, to posit "the future"as, in effect, "plasticity" amounts to displacingthe establisheddefinition of the futureas a moment or period of time. And indeed in the title such a displacementwas announced: "the future"(I'avenir), that which is "to come,"will not be restrictedin meanthe immediate,predictableconnotation, that of the "future" "future as ing by time." Thus it is not a matter of examining the relations between past, present, and the conventional sense of the futurepresented in the discussionsof time in Hegel's different versions of a Philosophy Nature (1970).7 Rather, of these texts themselves demand that we renounce the "well-known"and familiar meaning of the future and, as a consequence, the "well-known"definition of time. The possibilitythat one temporaldetermination-the futurecan be thought differently,beyond its initial, simple status as a moment of time-of "thatwhich is now to come"-makes it immediatelyclear that time, for Hegel, cannot be reducedto an orderedrelationbetween moments.Rather, we will understand"plasticity" primarilythe excessof futureover thefuture; as while "temporality," it figuresin speculative philosophy,will mean instead as thesurplus timeovertime. of These preliminaryremarksindicate at the start of the game that my work will not follow the path set out by AlexandreKoyreand Kojeve, althoughboth do pursuethis question of the "future" the philosophyof Hegel. The former, in in his article on "Hegel at Jena,"the latter in his Introduction theReading to of of Hegel, agree:in the "Systems" the Jena period, the futurehad "prevalence" or alternately,priority,over the past and the present. Thus both writersshow here the proximityof the thought of the young Hegel to that of Heidegger.But the kind of treatmentrepresentedby Koyreand Kojeve, despite its interestand its significance, does not give us the means to respond to the question of the

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future in Hegel. Besides the fact that the problem of an "orientationtowards the future"is in no respect a Hegelian problematic,this way of readingHegel leads,as Koyreand Kojeveboth admit,to an impasse.They end by arguingthat there is an unresolved contradiction in the philosophy of Hegel: it can only at grantthe futurea priorityover the other momentsof time by suspending once all futureyet to come. Koyre,on the one hand, arguesthat for Hegel, "time is dialectical and ... is constructedfrom the vantage point of the future,"and on the other hand, that "the philosophy of history-and in that respect the philosophy of Hegel as a whole, the system,so to speak-can only be a possibilityif historyhas come to an end, if it has no more future;if time can stop" (Koyre 1971, 189). the Hegel wasnever able to "reconcile" two meaningsthat the notion of the futuretakes on in his System:on the one hand, a chronological future,whose dynamicis the foundationof all historicalbecoming/development;and, on the other hand, a future as the logical "happening"(advent) of the Notion, that (Zu-sich-selbst-kommen) is, the Notion in the "act-of-coming-to-itself" (Hegel 1976b, 841; 1981, 390). both: he maintainson the one hand that Kojeve,forhis part,wants to affirm "the Time that Hegel has in view ... is characterizedby the primacyof the Future"(1947, 367), but on the other hand, "man,"when he achieves the standpoint of Absolute Knowledge,has no more future: The Man who no longer relates himself... to an object given externally,thus has no furtherreasonto negateit for the sake of remaining in existence and conserving his self-identity. And the Man who no longer negates has no real future. (Kojeve 1947,387) The exposureof a supposedcontradiction which, by its very nature, could as not be dialectical it remains irresoluble:this is an impasse noted by many of Hegel from the firsthalf of the 20th century. But the work of interpreters a new generation of French commentators-Bernard Bourgeois,Pierre-Jean GerardLebrun,Denise Souche-Dagues8-establishes on the conLabarriere, that "historicalbecoming"and "logical truth"form a dynamic unity in trary Hegelian philosophy.These studiesadmittedlyhave not resolvedthe problem in of the relation between "eterity" and "historicity" Hegelianism, but they have sufficientlyclarifiedit so that it no longer needs to be thematisedhere as subject.If my approachdoes not return to this problematic, neither does it relation connecting the Pheorganizeitself aroundan analysisof the structural and the Scienceof Logic.Nor, finally,does it undertakethe examinomenology nation of the relation between a philosophy of history and the immanent derivation of the Notion within the confines of the System. These problems to will be continually referred in the courseof my inquiry,but they do not constitute its themes.

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The possibility of affirmingthe "futureof Hegel"-in the double meaning of a future"of"his philosophy and a future"within"his philosophy-depends in the firstinstance on posing the question of the futurewhere "one does not anticipate it." Consequently it is plasticitywhich will be presented as the of "unforeseen" Hegelian philosophy. To this extent, the futureof the notion of plasticity must be put into play. Its viability depends on the success of an epistemological operation which resembles,in its method, that defined by Georges Canguilhem in terms that would become famous: To work on a concept is to explore the variations in its extension and its intelligibility.It is to generalizeit by including in it the traitsof its exceptions. It is to export it outside its own domain, to use it as a model or conversely to look for a model for it, in short it is to give to it, bit by bit, through orderedtransformations,the function of a form. (Canguilhem 1970, 206) Such an operation will guide us, throughoutthe entire scope of this work, in testing theplasticity thenotionof plasticity of itself.
HEGELIAN PHILOSOPHY AND THETEST OF PLASTICITY A. ORDINARY MEANINGSOFTHECONCEPTOF PLASTICITY

To "workon" the concept of "plasticity" will, following Canguilhem'suse, amount to "givinga formalfunction" to a term which itself, in its firstsense, describesor designates act of givingform.The English and French substanthe tives "plasticity"or plasticiteand their German equivalent, "Plaztizitat," entered the languagein the eighteenth century.9 They joined two wordsalready current which had been formed from the same root: the substantive "PlastiAll city" (diePlastik),and the adjective "plastic"(plastisch). three wordswere derived from the Greek plassein,which means "to model, to mould." "Plastic," as an adjective, means two things: on the one hand, to be "susceptibleto changes of form,"malleable-clay is a "plastic"material-and on the other hand, "having the power to bestow form, the power to mould,"as in the expressions"plasticsurgeon"and "plasticarts."This twofold significationis met Grimm'sdictionary defines it thus: again in the German adjective plastisch. "thatwhich takes or gives shape, or figure,to bodies"(korperlich gestaltend ... oder gestaltet).10 plasticite,or "plasticity,"just like Plaztizitatin German, La describesthe natureof that which is "plastic," that which is at once capableof receiving and of giving form. These definitions help to clarifythe "hermeneuticcircle"in which my approach has been caught ever since the formation of the concept "plasticity" requiredthat the word itself be defined. The defining and the defined are the

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same.Admittedly,if we areto separateone fromthe other,"theextension must be changed."But these alterations themselves take advantage of the signification of the term "plasticity": indeed, the word'sevolution in the language reveals alreadyits "exportationoutside its original terrain."The homeland of plasticity is the field of art. Plasticity is clearly intrinsic to the art of "modeling" and, in the first instance, to the art of sculpture.The plastic arts are those for which the central aim is the articulationand development of forms; among these are counted architecture,drawing,and painting. Now, by extension, plasticity signifiesthe general aptitudefor development, the power to be molded by one's culture, by education. We speak of the plasticity of the newborn, of the child's plasticity of character.Plasticity is, in another context, and characterizedby "suppleness" flexibility, as in the case of the "plasticity" it means as well the ability to evolve and adapt. It is in this of the brain, yet sense that one calls upon in speakingof a "plasticvirtue"possessedby animals, plants, and living things in general. The "extension"I have been drawingout must be understoodin a particular way. By analogy to a malleable material, children are said to be "plastic." "fixed," However, the adjective "plastic,"if it is certainly opposed to "rigid," and "ossified," not to be confusedwith "polymorphous." is Things that areplastic preservetheir shape, as does the marble in a statue: once given a configthus, designatesthose uration,it is unable to recover its initial form."Plastic," deformation.From things that yield themselves to being formedwhile resisting this it is possible to understanda further "extension"of this term into the terrainof histology,for which "plasticity" representsthe ability of tissue to reform itself after a lesion. Plasticity'srange of meanings has not come to a halt and it continues to is evolve with and in the language.Plasticmaterial a synthetic materialwhich can take on different shapes and properties according to the functions inon tended. "Plastic" its own is an explosive materialwith a nitroglycerineand nitrocellulose base that can set off violent detonations. The plasticity of the word itself drawsit to extremes, both to those concrete shapes in which form is crystallized(sculpture)and to the annihilation of all form (the bomb).
B. HEGEL'S NOTION OF PLASTICITY

To construct the concept of plasticity as it figuresin Hegel's philosophy requiresfirstof all that we uncover the way in which Hegel himself gives shape to this idea. Throughsuch an elaboration,we find that three areasof meaning aremutuallyimplicated.In each case that double connotation of the adjective is "plastic" present:capacity to receive form and capacity to produceform. It is this double signification which enables us to treat the adjective as itself a "speculativeword,"in Hegel's special sense.

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The words The firstrelevantfield of significationis that of the "plasticarts." and "plastisch" Plastikappearfrequently in Hegel's discussions of Greek art, especially in the Aesthetics,where sculptureis defined as "the plastic art par excellence." This more familiar sense of "plasticity," when drawn upon and extended, permitsthe philosopherto develop his notion further:it acquiresa greaterrange and complexity in its second signifyingfield, where it applies to those he entitles "plastic individuals" plasticcharacters. Hegel's account, or In describesthe nature of those Greek figureswho representan indi"plasticity" and viduality he names "exemplary"(exemplarische) "substantial"(substanand above all Sophocles, as well as Thucytielle)."Pericles,... Phidias,Plato, dides, Xenophon, Socrates"are "plasticindividuals": "Theyare greatand free, on the soil of their own inherently substantialpersonalgrown independently ity, self-made,and developing into what they (essentially) were and wanted to be" (Hegel 1975a, 719). Hegel insists on the fact that: "This sense for the perfect plasticity of gods and men was pre-eminently at home in Greece (dieserSinnfir die vollendete Plastikder Gottlichenund Menschlichen war vorehmlich in Griechenland heiIn its poets and orators,historiansand philosophers,Greece is not to be misch). understoodat its heart unless we bringwith us as a key to our comprehension an insight into the ideals of sculptureand unless we consider from the point of view of their plasticity not only the heroic figuresin epic and dramabut also the actual statesmen and philosophers.After all, in the beautifuldays of Greece, men of action, like poets and thinkers, had this same plastic and universal yet individual characterboth inwardlyand outwardly(diesenplasund nach auj3en nach innengleichen wie tischen,allgemeinen dochindividuellen, Charakter)" (Hegel 1975a, 719).11 These "plasticcharacters" formto the "thespiritualin its embodiment" give des (Korperlichkeit Geistigen).Thus the theme of plastic individuality itself representsa middle term, mediating between plasticity in its first signifying and domain, that of sculpture,12 its third:philosophical plasticity. The expression"philosophicalplasticity"mustbe understoodin two different ways. On the one hand, it characterizesthe philosophical attitude, the behavior specificto the philosopher.On the other hand, it appliesto philosophy itself, to its form and manner of being, that is to say, to that rhythm in which the speculative content is unfolded and presented. In the Preface to The Scienceof Logicof 1831 Hegel states: "A plastic discourse (ein plastischer demands, too, a plastic receptivity and underVortrag) Sinn des Aufnehmens und standing on the part of the listener (einenplastische but Verstehens); youths and men of such a temperwho would calmly suppress theirown reflectionsand opinions in which original thought is so impatient to manifest itself, listeners such as Plato feigned, who would attend only to the matterat hand (nurderSachefolgender could have no place in a modZuhorer),

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em dialogue;still less could readersof such a disposition"(Hegel 1976b, 40; 1991c, 24). The plastic individualityof the Greeks thus acquiresthe value of a model for the ideal philosophical attitude.13 Plasticity in this connection designates primarilythe ability of the philosophizingsubjectto attend to the content, the "matterat hand,"by purifyingthe formof all that is arbitrary personal,all and does that is immediate and particular.However, as we have seen, "plasticity" The not mean "polymorphous." philosophic readeror interlocutoris of course receptive to the form,but they in their turn are led to give form to that which In they hear or read.14 this sense they become comparable,thinks Hegel, to those Greek exemplarsof plastic individuality.If, like those models, the ideal and philosophersareboth "universal individual,"this comes fromthe waythey acquire their formative principle from the universal-the Notion-while at it the same time bestowing a particularformon the universalby incarnating or embodying it. Thus the individual is now understoodas becoming the "Da(l'tre-l&)of Spirit, the translationof the spiritualinto sein,"the "being-there" the materialityof sense. It follows that plasticityappearsas a processwhere the universal and the particularmutually inform one another, and their joint outcome is that particularitycalled the "exemplaryindividual." These remarksdraw us to think furtherabout the second connotation of ? (em Vortrag) philosophicalplasticity.Forwhat is a "plasticdiscourse" plastische A passage from the Preface to the Phenomenology Spirithelps clarify this of definition: Only a philosophical exposition that rigidly excludes (streng the ausschlosse) usual way of relating the partsof a proposition Excould achieve the goal of plasticity (diesjenige philosophische es plastischzu sein). (Hegel 1977, 39; positionwuirde erreichen 1941, 1:55) As a philosophical proposition is normally understood,the subject of the propositionis thought of as a fixed instance:it is given predicatesfromoutside, and not able to producethem itself. "Toexclude rigorouslythe usualrelation between the partsof a proposition"implies a reconceptualizingof this relation One as a process of substance's"self-determination" (Selbstbestimmung). conanother: this is unception of substance'srelation to its accidents passesinto derstoodby Hegel as the passagefrom the predicative proposition to the speculativeproposition. Elevated into its speculative truth, the propositionalrelationbetweensubWithin the process of selfis ject and predicates characterizedby "plasticity." and particular(the accidents as determination, the universal (the substance) something independent) give form to each other througha dynamic like that at play in the "plastic individualities."The process of self-determination is

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In the unfolding of the Substance/Subject. the process, Substance withdraws from itself in orderto enter into the particularityof its content. Through this movement of self-negation Substance will posit itself as Subject. As Bernard Bourgeoisremarks,"(t)he Subject is that infinite activity, or, more precisely, negativity, whose identity is in this way made true, concrete, and mediated, and which actualizesitself in its internal self-differentiation,in its division or Teilen),that is to say,in its 'judgment'(Ur-teil). originalscission (ursprungliche The identity that belongs to the subject affirmsitself in its differencewhereas the identity at the level of substancecan only be affirmedin the negation of differencewhich is also implicit in that identity" (Hegel 1988, 201, Note 3). Self-determinationis the movement throughwhich substanceaffirms itself as at once subjectand predicate itself. In the Scienceof Logicin the Encycloof pediaHegel defines the "relation between substantialityand accidentality," or the "Absolute Relation," as the "activity-of-form" (Formtatigkeit) (Hegel 1991a, 225). Indeed it is this "activity"that indicates precisely the very plasitself, its capacityboth to receive formand to give formto its ticityof substance own content. With this considerationof self-determination,seen as the "originaryoperation of plasticity,"we arriveat the very heart of the present study.
C. THE DIALECTIC AND THE"WAIT AND SEE"

This heart has a "pulse,"whose rhythms are spelled out by the last term of my title-"The Future of Hegel: Plasticity, Temporality,Dialectic."The movement of self-determinationis in fact the very principle of the dialectical process.Its energy is bor from the contradictorytension between the preservation of determination as something particularand the dissolution of evScienceof Logic, erything determinate in the universal. In the Encyclopedia Hegel demonstratesthat this sametension is operativein the waya "first term," posited "in and for itself," a moment which has the appearanceof "self-subsistence" (absolute self-identity), displaysitself as "the other of itself" by dissolving the fixity of its position (Hegel 1976b, 833-34).15 In the logical unfolding of the "substance-subject," possibility of this the dynamicof preservationand dissolution takes shape, as is clearlyshown in the Preface to the Phenomenology: "On account of its simplicity or self-identity it appears fixed (fest) and enduring(bleibend). this self-But (Sichselbstgleichheit) identity is no less negativity, therefore its fixed existence passes over into its dissolution (Auflosung)" (Hegel 1977, 34; 1941, 42). The dialectical because,as it unfolds,it makes process(my italics) is "plastic" links between the opposing moments of total immobility (the "fixed")and evacuation ("dissolution"),and then links both in the vitality of the whole, a whole which, reconciling these two extremes, is itself the union (conjugaison) of resistance and The processof plasticity is (Widerstand) fluidity (Fliissigkeit).

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dialectical becausethe operationswhich constitute it-the seizureof formand the annihilation of all form, emergence and explosion-are contradictory.16 Now we can see the connection linking the three concepts-"Plasticity," of and "temporality," "dialectic."Forthis is nothing less than the formation the future itself. Plasticity characterizesthe relation between substanceand accidents. Now the Greek word "symdedakos," "accident,"derives from the verb which means at the same time to followfrom, to ensure, and to "symdanein," in arrive,to happen.Thereby it can designate continuation both senses of the that is, "whatfollows"in the logical sense, and as event, word, as consequence, that is, "whatfollows"in a chronologicalsense. Self-determinationis thus the relation of substance to thatwhichhappens. Following this line of thought we understandthe "future" (a-venir)in the philosophy of Hegel as therelation,the maintains with theaccidental. connection,whichsubjectivity To understandthe future other than in the ordinaryimmediate sense of "amoment of time"requiresby the sametoken an opening-out of the meaning of of time: an extension made possible by the very plasticity temporalityitself. The deployment of the Hegelian conception of time is not fixed by reference to the places and the times-to the "moments"-of its treatment within the by System. Time is an agency (une instance)characterized dialectical differentiation; if it finds itself divided into definite moments, these determine it only for a moment. Drawn into what could be called a "dialecticalcomposition,"the concepts form a structureoriented toand "temporality" of "the future,""plasticity," wards anticipation, a structureoperative in subjectivity as Hegel conceives that. To distinguish this structurefrom the future as ordinarilyunderstood, we will name this structurethe "Waitand See" (le "voir venir"),obeying Hegel's insistence that we philosophize in the languageitself. Voirvenirin French means to wait while observing,as is prudent,how events are developing. But it also suggeststhat there are intentions and plans of other people which must be probed and guessed at. In this way an expression can referat one and the sur same time to the state of "beingsurewhat is coming"("etre de ce quivient") It ce and "notknowingwhat will happen"("nepassavoir quiva venir"). is on this account that the "waitand see"can representthat interplay,within Hegelian or necessityand surprise novelty. philosophy,of teleological The structure of "wait and see" creates its own specific boundaries. On the inside of the system, there is the "limit"controlling its functioning within Hegel's thought; externally,there is a "limit"which will decide on the future of Hegel'sthought. Our method is to "workon" all the occurrencesin Hegel of his concept of plasticity,and then at the same time to "alterthe understanding"by means of a regulated"extension"of its meaning. But this amounts to the following: revealing the link between these two boundaries,internal and dontla external, and, no less, discovering the way "form" appears("lamaniere formeprend")in the Hegelian system and after it.

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of Plasticity is, therefore, the point aroundwhich all the transformations Hegelian thought revolve, the center of its metamorphoses(centredes metamorphoses). HEGEL ANDHISTWOFORMS TIME OF Time, as deployed in this philosophy, is neither a univocal nor a fixed at concept. In fact, Hegel works(in) on two "times" once. Section 258 of the standsas a proofof this. "Time,"Hegel states in this paragraph, is Encyclopedia "thebeing which, in being, is not and in not-being, is"(Hegel 1970, 1:229-30; of 1969-1979, 9:48).17 A "dialectical" understanding this phrasebringsout of it its necessary"doublemeaning."Normally,it can be understoodin the initial, primaryway. Time is and is not to the degree that its moments cancel each other out; the present is a "now"which exists, but as it is something which passes,will soon, almost immediatelyin fact, exist no longer;this is the present as an instant hanging between two non-existents, the past and the future.Further to this, Hegel writes in the next paragraph, 259 (Hegel 1970, 1:233): sec. "The dimensions of time, present, future, and past, are the becoming exteof as such, and the resolution (Auflisung) of it into the differencesof Beriority ing as passingover into nothing, and of nothing as passingover into Being." But to understand"becoming" (devenir)as the co-implication of presence and as a twofold negation of the "now," while it is accurateas faras it nothingness, is incomplete. If time is "the being which, in being, is not and in nongoes, being, is," then this means also, rigorouslyput: "Time itself is not what it is." Time is not always(simultaneously,successively,and permanently) the same as itself. The conceptof time has its own moments: it differentiatesitself and thus temporalizes itself.
LOGICAL DIFFERENTIATION

Froma carefulreadingof Encyclopedia 258 and sec. 259, this differensec. tiation emergesclearly.Time is in fact presentedat onceaccordingto its classical Greek determination, that of Aristotle, and accordingto its modem determination, that of Kant. If the analysis of the now, the definition of time as "abeing which in being, is not" (Aristotle 1984b IV, 10, 218 b 29) is effectively borrowedfrom PhysicsIV, the definition of time as "the pure form of sensibility"-Hegel writes, in fact: "Time, like space, is a pure form of sense or intuition; it is the non-sensuoussensuous (dasunsinnliche Sinnliche)" (Hegel 1970, 1:230; 1969-1979, 9:48)-is clearly taken from the Critiqueof Pure Reason(Kant 1996). By claiming, in the Remarkto sec. 258 (Hegel 1970, 1:230; 1969-1979, 9:49), "Time is the same principle as the 1=1of pure self-consciousness(das selbePrinzip das Ich=Ich)," als Hegel absorbsthe conclusions of Kant'sanalysis

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and recallsthe identity of the "cogito"and time itself. This identity of time and the "cogito"cannot be reducedto a continuum of instants;ratherit appearsas as a synthetic unity (instance synthftique), a "waitand see."It is evident that by defining time as a "sensiblenon-sensible"-a reference to the Kantian definition of the pureformof intuition-Hegel is not reducingthe understanding of time to a mere series of nows. In this connection, JacquesDerridaremarks how Heideggernever utters a word about the fact that Hegel introducesKant of "into his paraphrase Aristotle."He fails to "relatethis Hegelian concept of the 'sensuousnon-sensuous"'to its Kantian equivalent (44).18 nor The Hegelian analysisof time is not directed towardsthe single "now"; does time appearin it as "thatin which"becominghas its place. Hegel clarifies this: "Itis not in time that everythingcomes to be and passesaway,rathertime Derridacomments:"Hegeltook multiple precautionsof itself in the becoming." this type. By opposingthem to all the metaphoricalformulationsthat state the 'fall' into time, . .. one could exhibit an entire Hegelian critique of intra(45). temporality(Innerzeitigkeit)" The sameconclusions can be drawnabout the referenceto Aristotle. Hegel and, in defining clearly adopted the Aristotelian problematicof the "stigme" followed the firstphase of the aporiaas it is set out in PhysicsIV: time time, is composed of "nows."But Hegel also takes on, although not explicitly, the second part of the aporia:time is not composed of "nows."Derridaurgesour attention on precisely this point. Aristotle's argument, in the second phase of the aporia,maintains the impossibilitythat the parts of time can co-exist with one another:"A now cannot coexist, as a currentand present now, with another now as such"(Derrida1982, 54). Derridaconcludes:"The impossibility of coexistence can be posited as such only on the basis of a certain coexof istence, of a certain simultaneity the nonsimultaneous,in which the alterity and identity of the now are maintainedtogether in the differentiatedelement of a certain same (un certainm.me).... The impossible-the co-existence of two nows-appears only in a synthesis ... in a certain complicity or complication maintaining (maintenant)together several current nows (maintenants) which are said to be the one past and the other future"(55). The writer drawsattention to the little word ama (hama), which appears "all five times in PhysicsIV, 218a, and means "together," at once," "both together,"and "atthe same time."This locution "isfirstneither spatialnor temporal."The simul,here, "saysthe complicity, the common origin of time (the possibility of the synthesis of the coexistence of the nows) and space (the potential synthesis of the coexistence of points), appearingtogether (comas paraitre) the condition for all appearingof Being" (1982, 56). time IV The exposition of Physics allowsus to see how Aristotle understands at the same "time"as a sequence of nows and as an instance of synthesis. Hegel, in his analysisof the relation between space and time, shows that he

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carrieson here this same understandingof the synthesis. In referenceto space he writes:"Itis inadmissibleto speakof spatialpoints as if they constituted the positive element in space, (becauseon account of its lack of difference), space is merely the possibility,not the positedness of a state of juxtaposition and what is negative" (1970, 1:223; 1969-1979, 9:42). of Space, to the degree that it is a synthesis, is the originarypossibility Much the same is truefor time, whose synthetic unity is called by separation.19 Hegel "a negative unity."The dialectic of "Sense Certainty"in the Phenomenologyof Spiritexplicitly reveals the difference between the "here"and the "now"understoodon the one hand as punctualphenomena, and on the other as that synthesis which representsthe "now which is many nows." In this capacityto differentiateitself fromitself time shows exactly the sign of its plasticity. this differentiation itself furtherrequiresa twofoldunderYet For it is, on the one hand, synchronic-the Hegelian concept of time standing. does not reduce to a singularmeaning. And on the other hand, it is diachronic-to say that time is not alwayswhat it is signifiesalso that it differentiates itself from itself in time, that it has, to put it another way, a history. B. CHRONOLOGICAL DIFFERENTIATION In the Encyclopedia on paragraphs space and time, the implicit referencesto Aristotle and Kant make it possible to clarifya fundamentalcharacteristicof Hegel's thought. The "waitand see," the structureof subjective anticipation, which is the originarypossibilityof all encounter (vis-a-vis),is not thesamein everymomentof its history,it does not "see things coming" (voirvenir) in the same way,it doesnot havethesamefuture(avenir).Subjectivity itself "comesto be" (advient)in two fundamentalmoments: theGreekmomentand themodem which prove to be, both in their logical unity and in their chronologmoment, ical succession, "subjectas substance"and "substanceas subject."Hegelian philosophy synthesizes two understandings:ousia-hypokemenon-theGreek moder substance-subject. substance-subject; subjectum-substantia-the In the advent of Christianity,which he saw as the "axison which the history of the world turs" (Hegel 1991b, 319), Hegel saw the emergence of the modem conception of subjectivity which dialectically sublates (relive) the earlierGreek conception. The subject thus differsfrom itself chronologically and logically. Firstthe "substance-subject" shows itself as a substance-subject, then as a substance-subject; needs to respect the accentuation here, inone sisting on, to repeat the terms of BernardBourgeois,"The substitutionof the primacyof Christianthought, which is subjectivist('the subjectis substance'), for the primacy of pagan thought, which is substantialist ('substance is the subject')"(Bourgeois 1992, 68). We will attempt to bring to light both the logical and chronological differ-

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entiations of these two "trials" (proces)of the "waitand see."They appear,in Hegelian philosophy,as the two greatmoments of subjectivity's coming-to-be, the firstthe epoch that standsunderthe name of Aristotle, the second the one which belongs to Kant. The power of Hegel's thought comes from his transformationof the relation of these two modalities of the "waitand see"from a historical succession to a "facea face"encounter at the level of philosophy.The firstmodalityarises fromwhat it is possible to call the originary movesynthetic unityof a teleological and ment in potentiality in action. The other modality stems from the originary the (Vorstellung). syntheticunity of apperception, foundation of representation Now it is the double sense of the locutions "in itself" and "foritself" which demonstratesthis claim. The speculativecontent itself follows the movement shapedby this contrastbetween the "in itself"and the "foritself,"a movement to conceivable in two ways.On the one hand, it opposeswhat is "potentiality" on what is "actual"20; the other hand, it opposes the truth known in the form of "certainty" (truth'ssubjective moment) to the truth known in the form of "truth"(truth'smoment of objectivity). At the core of his philosophy, Hegel determines a speculative relation which reand between the teleological linearity, circularity the representational to calls representationto its Greek past and announces a posteriori Greek phias losophy its representativefuture.In return,Greek thought appears much the of representationas representationthe future of Greek thought. This future game of the double "waitand see"makesreadingHegel more tryingthan reading almost any other philosopher.Reading Hegel amounts to finding oneself and in two times at once: the process that unfolds is both retrospective prothe readeris drawn spective.In the present time in which readingtakes place, to a double expectation: waiting for what is to come (accordingto a thought that the outcome has alreadyarrived(acwhich is linear), while presupposing cording to the teleological ruse). There has not yet been any study dedicated to uncovering what these two "great moments of subjectivity"promise: nothing less than the immanent temporalizationof the System. For these two moments don't belong to the same rime. By configuringitself in both perspectives, Hegelian thought announces the arrival(I'advenue) of a new time. And here awaitsthe underlying question of my work:if there is a time that is the synthesis of its own content, thus as much a logical form as a chronological one, how can we explain its nature?
AND TRANSCENDENTAL EXPOSITION EXPOSITION C. SPECULATIVE

Indeed the Philosophy Naturehas alreadydriven time out of nature,thereof by revealingthat the concept of time exceeds its initial definition. This excess

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is not, however, exhibited for itself within the System. No moment of the speculative exposition can occupy the overarchingposition: there is no speculative "arche-moment." The "wait and see" does not enjoy a transcendental stature. Any transcendentalinstance necessarilyfindsitself in a position of exteriorityin relation to that which it organizes.By its nature, the condition of possibility is other than that which it makes possible. Yet the Hegelian conception of a systemimpliespreciselythe opposite:the absenceof any "outside" of the System.Dialecticalphilosophyis systematically non-transcendental. There is no place, in Hegel, for a specific analysis of the concept of time, one that would demonstrateits plastic character. In this regard,our approachshall be not so much thematic strategic. is a as It driven by the two concepts-of "plasticity" "voirvenir"-whose and strategy construction is the keystone of this project. An economyof sensible translation -to borrow the Kantian definition of "hypotyposis"21-isitself figuredsensuously by these concepts. This translation of the concept into the form of the sensuousis in essence systematic,an operation which the transcendental deduction cannot account for. In the Phenomenology Spirit,Hegel declares,"The singularindividual is, of on its own terms, the transition of the concept into external reality;it is the pure schema itself (das reineSchema)"(Hegel 1977, 143; 1941, 1:201). The living being can constructits own schemafor itself, and this, the unificationof the concept with empirical existence, cannot be explained by anything externalto the system.The scarcityof referencesto the notion of plasticityis thus evidence of its distinct mode of presence, which is that of the originarysynthesis, maintainedonly in the interval between presence and absence. It is for this reason,becauseplasticity workswithin the body (au corps)of the systematic presentation,without ever extending above it or overdeterminingit, that it is revealed as the concept capable of accounting for the incarnation, or incorporation,of spirit.
IV. A READINGOF THEPHILOSOPHY SPIRIT OF

At this point it is possible to bring together the lines of force which determinethe strategyof this reading.The "waitand see"(voirvenir)standsfor the operation of synthetic temporalizingin Hegel's thought, which means it is the structureof anticipation through which subjectivity projectsitself in advance of itself, and therebyparticipatesin the processof its own determination. Plasticity for its part guaranteesthe differentialenergy which moves at the heart of the "waitand see,"appearingas the condition of possibilityfor this projection. The "waitand see"is doublydifferentiated.Logically, gatherstogether the it different significationsof the Hegelian understandingof time: a whole and a

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relation of moments (past,present,future),a synthetic structure(self-determiit nation), a sensuous translation of the concept. Chronologically, has itself a which is unfolded in history within being reducible to it. The subhistory, stance-subjectis "seento come" (se voirvenir)throughtwo momentsof its own identity, the Greek and the modem. These two majormoments each possess their own conception of the relation between the ecstasesof time,one having a conception of it as synthesisor self-determination, other as hypotyposis. the the Elazizitat Furthermore, "infiniteelasticity of the absolute form (unendliche derabsolute fromwhich follows the temporalization the "process" of of Form)," the substance-subject,is that which can determine, in every moment of the substance-subject,its "form(Form)"(Hegel 1971, 291). The form,we can say, is the "relation (Verhaltnis)which self-consciousness takes to the body of truth"(284). To studyhow this device (dispositif) functions in each of its epochs, we will marchof spirit,"embracingits temporaldeploymentin enter into the "forward the places where time is supposedto be absent:in the Philosophy Spirit the of of Sciences. The last edition of 1830 will be the basis of Encyclopedia Philosophical for this reading.In his Remarkto sec. 387 (Hegel 1971, 25), Hegel displaysthe processof spiritual anticipation: and so in spiritevery characterunderwhich it appearsis a stage in a process of specification and development, a step forward towardsits goal (seinemZiele),in orderto make (Vorwartsgehen) itself into, and to realizein itself, what it implicitlyis. Eachstep, again, is itself such a process, and its product is that what the mind was implicitly at the beginning (and so for the observer) it is for itself-for the special form, what spirithas in that step. ... In the philosophical vision of spirit as such, spirit is studied as self-instructionand self-cultivation in its very essence, and are its exteriorizations(seineAuJ3erungen) stages in the process which brings it forwardto itself (seinesSich-zu-sich-selbst-Herlinks it to unity with itself (seines Zusammenschvorbringen), mit lieJ3ens sich), and so makes it actual spirit. The readingofferedhere intends to pay particularattention to that strucwhich leadsfromthe "sleepof spirit"(Schlaf turewithin the Philosophy Spirit of des Geistes)-the "passivenous of Aristotle" (Hegel 1971, 29)-to the "intelligence which thinks itself": Aristotle's idea presented in the citation from which closes the Encyclopedia (Aristotle 1984a, 7, 1072b, 18-30). Metaphysics The Philosophy Spiritforms a space extending from nous to nous. However, of between potentiality and act there develops in another place a time which does not move forwardaccording to a teleological deployment: the time of representation,

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which gives to the instances of the content of the absolute spirit, on the one hand, a separatebeing, making them presuppositions towardseach other and phenomena which succeed one afterthe other (aufeinanderfolgender (Hegel Erscheinungen). 1969-1979, 10:3) Central to our analysisis the way these two perspectives,Greek and modem, are constructedand detailed. The Hegelian exposition of Aristotle's passive nous is found in the "Anthe thropology": exposition of the temporalityof representationin "Revealed and it is the citation from the Metaphysics which brings "PhilosoReligion"; phy" to its completion. The substance of the present work will consist of a the readingof these three moments of the Philosophy Spirit: firstmoment of of the penultimate and the final moments those of absolute subjective spirit; spirit. These three times of the readingwill be titled, respectively:"The Hude manity of Hegel" ("L'Homme Hegel");"The God of Hegel";and "The Phiof Hegel." losopher The choice of this triad-"Humanity, God, Philosopher"-intends a deliberate allusion to Heidegger'sarticulation of "onto-theology."The challenge here is to produce(provoquer) interpretationof this triad that uncovers all an the surprisesit has in reserve for a reading concerned to present Humanity, God, and the Philosopher of Hegel not as if they were fixed and substantial entities but as perspectives opento thecrossroads time. of What does that mean? Humanity,God, and Philosopherneed to be considered,to adoptHegel'sown phrase,as the "steps" (Stufe)in the development of the substance-subject.One could think about this as if "steps"implied at once a processof progressiveintensity and a succession of stages, as if the life of the concept were governedby the rhythm of Humanity,God, Philosopher, and as if it requiredan achievement of the concept by itself which, although it is manifestedin history,has no history of its own, in the sense that it does not have to maketimefor itself(faireson temps). But in fact, Humanity, God, Philosopher,far from being subjects constituted in advance, turn out to be the sites where subjectivityformsitself. They are the plasticinstances(instances where the three greatmoments of plastiques) self-determination-the Greek, the moder, and that of absoluteknowledge of -give themselves the "form" moments; in other words,where they create their specific temporality.Fromthis perspective, the notion of "step"loses its evaluative content, and only signifiesthe break interruption-the operation or of breaking(coupe(s))- in the self-formationof time itself. If one begins with the idea of such breaks, a discourse is invited that is not content to argueeither for the unity of the logical genesis or for that of the chronological genesis, but instead tries to locate the space of their common origin within the speculativedevelopment. Such a discourse-where the

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times meet and intersect-draws from the source of that which it tries to describe:from a speculative supplenesswhich is neither passion nor passivity, but plasticity. In what follows, at each moment of this triad, we need to select for examination a primordialmodalityof substancein its self-determinationand its recurringnegativity. By doing this, we will take a contraryapproachto the sortof discoursewhich believes it can discardthe anthropological,theological, and philosophic materialwhose noveltyHegel bringsto light. For within this detail will be revealed the unique perspective of a philosophy of the event. Further,if we take this thought to the limit, we find the possibility open to of Hegel's philosophy to registeritself as an event. By means of the discipline the in plasticity its reading, the Encyclopedia, ultimate expressionof Hegelian thought, will disclose all the gentleness of its maturity.

NOTES

to thank Librairie We very warmly J. permission Philosophique Vrinfor granting of a publish translation this work. de to L'Avenir Hegel: as 1. Firstpublished the introduction Catherine Malabou, of Paris: Plasticite, Dialectique. Vrin,1996.A fulltranslation the workinto Temporalite, Ed with London. is Press, English forthcoming Routledge "Because this as 2. JoanStambaugh translates passage follows: conceptof Hegel's of timehasbeen the timepresents mostradical in whichthe vulgar understanding way too and (Heidegger conceptually, one whichhasreceived little attention" givenform in (1984,428). Trans. 1996,390). Forthe original SeinundZeit,see Heidegger formula SeinundZeit(Heidegger in 3. Compare 1984,424):"arightHeidegger's Trans. that is no longer." away citedby of 4. I haveusedthe French Heidegger's Phenomenology Hegel's of Spirit of reads: translation thispassage The Malabou. English Catherine occasionally "Hegel the Thisaccords hisviewof the with about havingbeen,butneverabout future. speaks and of transitory something pastas the decisivecharacter time. It is a fadingaway, Marin the Frenchtranslation Emmanuel [Thepassage by appears always bygone." in declares the samelectureseries tineauin Heidegger (1984, 13). Trans.] Heidegger to view a thatHegeldevelops fundamental of beingaccording whichwhatis a genuine to has 1984, 146). (Heidegger beingis "what returned itself" of essencein thepastparticiple has 5. "The German (gewesen) language preserved for the verb'to be' (sein); essenceis past-but timelessly past-being" (Hegel1976b, 389). of 6. Emad Malygive,"Hegel's and conceptof being-in explication the genuine wheretimeismentioned-is nothinglessthanleavingtime thepassage indicated, just cites behindon the roadto spirit,whichis eternal" 1988,147).Malabou (Heidegger the French translation, Hegel(1941, 224). Trans. of 7. Thatis,theversions Jena(1804-5 and1805-6)andthatof theEncyclopedia in Sciences its threeeditions(1817, 1827, 1830). of Philosophic

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8. In particular,Bourgeois (1991); Labarriere(1970; 1986); Lebrun (1972), and especially chap. 8; Souche-Dagues (1986; 1990), especially chap. 3, "History," (1994, Part 3), "Timeand History"and "Conclusion." 9. The word entered the French language in 1785 (Dictionnaire Robert).The BrockhausDictionary shows that Plazizititwas introducedinto German "in the age of Goethe (dead in 1832)." 10. I reproducehere what is written in Grimm'sdictionary under the heading and "Plastik," "Plastiker," "Plastisch." PLASTIK, feminine noun, from the French, plastique,from the Greek ("techne"), the creative arts, which create organic forms out of matter (by cutting, chiseling, casting), in the narrow sense of the word, the "modeling arts.""The objective of all those arts, which, to honor the Greeks, we will henceforth call 'plastic,' is to display the dignity of the human through the mediumof the human form"(Goethe). "The plastic artsare only effective on the highest level" (Goethe). "Paintingenjoys a far wider domain, and greater freedom, than anything possible to the plastic arts"(Hans Meyer). artist."Dadelus,the firstcrePLASTIKER,masculinenoun, creative ative artist"(Goethe). "Who daresto write poetry,and is ashamedof languageand rhythm, is like the plastic artist, who builds pictures out of air"(Platen). "A plastic poet:our two greatestRomantics,Goethe and August von Schlegel, are at the same time our greatest creative artists"(Heine). PLASTISCH, adjective and adverb, "physicallyforming, shaping, or shaped,usefulor appropriate plasticity":"Belief,love, hope... once to they felt a plastic drive in their nature, they joined together with energy and produceda charming creation .... patience" (Goethe). "Plastic anatomy"(Goethe). "The plastic natureof men" (Schiller). "Plasticrepresentations" (A.W. Schlegel). "Gervinus the plastic artist";"plastic poet" (Heine); his "plasticpoetry,"whose formsseemed to emerge right out of the body (Heine). "To present plastically, to paint plastically" (with forms strongly grounded), "to delineate with plastic clarity"(Lenau); "plasticpeacefulness"(Auerbach);"plasticacts of violence," "stealing treasuresof sculpture"(Klopstock); "the act of sculpting, of modeling." [Roughrendition of Grimm'snineteenth-century language.Trans.] 11. In Lectures thePhilosophy History(Hegel 1991b), Pericles is describedas on of the paradigmof a "plastic individual":"Pericleswas a statesman of plastic antique character"(259). It was at Pericles' instigation that there originated "the production of those eternal monuments of sculpture": orations were addressed"to a band of his men whose genius has become classical for all centuries"(260-61). We find here the same examples:Thucydides, Socrates, Aristophanes. Alexander himself is characterized as a "plasticspirit":"(He) had been educated by the deepest and also the most comprehensive thinker of antiquity-Aristotle; and the education was worthy of the man who had undertakenit. Alexander was initiated into the profoundestmetaphysics: thereforehis naturewasthoroughlyrefinedand liberatedfromthe customarybonds of mere opinion, cruditiesand idle fancies (dadurch wurdeseinNaturellvollkommen ge-

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BandenderMeinung,derRoheit,dasleereVorsteUens und befreit). reinigt von densonstigen Aristotle left this grandnature as untrammeledas it was before his instructionscommenced;but impressedupon it a deep perception of what truth is, and formedthe spirit which nature had endowed with genius, to a plastic being rolling freely like a sphere through the ether" (272; translation modified). "Plastic,"in all these instances, clearly stands for "that which has the character of mobility."ComparingAthens to Sparta, Hegel describesthe former,cradle of the "plastic individuals,"as the exemplaryhome of "greatindustry,susceptibility to excitement, and development of individuality within the sphere of ethical spirit (eine eines des der innerhalb Kreises Regsamkeit, Ausbildung Individualitit grosseBetriebsamkeit, sitdichen Geistes)."In Sparta, on the other hand, "we witness rigid abstractvirtue-a life devoted to the State, but in which the mobility, the freedom of individuality are die der zurickput in the background(aberso, dassdieRegsamkeit, Freiheit Individualittt gesetztist)" (261-62). on In the Lectures theHistoryof Philosophy (Hegel 1955), Vol. 1, Hegel calls Greek (Introduction, 152); later we find the descriptionof Socrates as a philosophy "plastic" "plastic"individual (393). with direct referenceto sculp12. Forthese individualsare in fact called "plastic" ture: "All of them are out and out artistsby nature, ideal artists shaping themselves, individuals of a single cast, works of art standing there, like immortal and deathless images of the gods, in which there is nothing temporal and doomed. The same plasticity is characteristicof the worksof art which victors in the Olympics made of their bodies, and indeed even of the appearanceof Phryne, the most beautiful of women, who rose from the sea naked in the eyes of all Greece" (Hegel 1975a, 2:719-20). on 13. In the Lectures theHistoryof Philosophy, Hegel says of Socrates' interlocutors:"Suchpersonagesare, as we alreadysawin connection with Socrates (Hegel 1955, 1: 402), plastic personagesas regardsthe conversations:no one is put there to state his own views, or, as the French express it, pourplacerun mot"(Hegel 1955, 2:17; Hegel 1971-1978, 3:402). [Also in the Historyof Philosophy, Hegel sees fit to remind us that Socrates, the son of a sculptor,was broughtup to practice this art (Hegel 1955, 1:389). Trans.] mean(Bildsamkeit), 14. In one of its synonyms,plasticity signifies"malleability" Its second meaning-"the power to give form"-finds illustraing flexibility,docility. tion in the Hegelian vocabularyof information,or communication;one can think in Durchbildung." particularof the substantives"Ein-und 15. Catherine Malabou cites the French text (Hegel 1981, 379); the German (Hegel 1969-1979, 6) is on 561. Trans. NaturalLaw, 16. In the conclusion of his essay on The Scientific Waysof Treating Hegel shows that spiritualdevelopment in its differentmoments(still characterizedin and this epoch with the term Potenzen)emergeat once froman appearance an explosion of form: "The absolute totality restricts itself as necessity in each of its spheres, produces itself out of them as a totality, and recapitulatesthere the precedingspheresjust as it anticipates the succeeding ones. But one of these is the greatest power ... it is necessaryfor individualityto advance throughmetamorphoses,and for all that belongs to the dominant stage to weaken and die, so that all stages of necessity appearas such stages in this individualitybut the misfortuneof this period of transition (i.e. that this strengthening of the new formation has not yet cleansed itself absolutely of the past)

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is wherethe positiveresides. And although withina specific form,advances nature, uniform uniformly but with a uniform it movement, accelerated) (not mechanically still enjoysa newformwhichit acquires. nature As entersthatform,so it remains in towards zenithandthen restsfora momentin it; its it, justas a shell starts suddenly metalwhenheateddoesnot turnsoft like wax,but all at once becomesliquidand remains so-for thisphenomenon the transition the absolute is into and opposite so is or andthisemergence the opposite of infinity out of its nothingness of out is infinite, a leap(einSprung). shape,in its new-born The at strength, firstexistsforitselfalone, it of before becomes conscious itsrelation another. so,thegrowing to Just individuality hasboththe delightof the leapin entering newformandalsoan enduring a pleasure in its newform,untilit gradually and opensupto the negative; in its declinetoo it is sudden brittle(undauchin ihrem and und ist)" Untergange einmal brechend (Hegel auf 1975b,131-32). 17. "Sieist dasSein, das,indemes ist, nicht andindemes nicht ist." ist, ist, 18. Derrida that"itis wellknownthatHeidegger adds considered Hegelto have coveredoveranderased in Kant's audaciousness manyrespects" (Derrida 1982,44). 19. HegelusesAuseinandersetzen senseof "juxtaposition" well as "sepin the as Trans. aration." 20. See, forexample, "the is the Hegelon Aristotle: 'dunamis'the disposition, 'in element: the abstract also universal general, Idea,insofar in the as itself,'the objective 'Foritself'means'in act':L'energeiathe actualizing is element,negamerely potentia, itselfto itself" transtivitywhichrelates (Hegel1971-1978,3:518,519). [TheEnglish lationgivesthis:"Itis firstin energy, moreconcretely, subjectivity, he finds or in that the actualizing form,the self-relating negativity" (Hegel1955,2:138).Trans.] 21. "All hypotyposis. . consistsin makinga concept sensible,and is either . schematic symbolic" or (Kant1987,226).

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