What Should We Do with Our Brain?

1. Introduction

Catherine Malabou’s What Should We Do with Our Brain? (Que faire de notre cerveau ?) is a short philosophical essay that connects contemporary brain science to questions of subjectivity and politics. Written in the early 2000s, it intervenes at a moment when talk of the “plastic brain” was spreading across neuroscience, psychology, management theory, and popular culture.

The work turns on a double movement. First, Malabou presents the dominant scientific and cultural image of the brain: a decentralized, networked, self-organizing organ capable of continual reconfiguration. This image, she argues, has become a pervasive paradigm for understanding human beings, institutions, and social life. Second, she contends that this same image is not politically neutral. Instead, it resonates strongly with the organization of contemporary capitalism, especially post-Fordist and neoliberal forms that prize adaptability, flexibility, and self-management.

Within this framework, the essay introduces the notion of plasticity as a key concept. Malabou distinguishes it from more familiar ideas of flexibility or elasticity, arguing that plasticity refers not only to the capacity to receive or adapt to form but also to the power to create new form and to destroy or “explode” existing structures. This threefold sense of plasticity structures her reading of both neurobiological research and social reality.

The title question—“What should we do with our brain?”—is thus not merely biological or psychological. It is posed as a political and philosophical problem: how to interpret and appropriate the brain’s plasticity in a way that does not simply naturalize current economic arrangements. The essay proposes that a different understanding of our own neural plasticity could underwrite new forms of resistance, collective organization, and transformation.

Subsequent sections of this entry describe the historical context of the work, its composition, structure, main arguments, and the debates it has generated across philosophy, neuroscience, and the social sciences.

2. Historical and Intellectual Context

2.1 Philosophical and Political Setting

What Should We Do with Our Brain? was composed in the early 2000s, in a context marked by several intersecting developments:

In French and European political thought, the 1990s and early 2000s also saw renewed attention to the relationship between capitalism and subjectivity, including work on precarity, self-entrepreneurship, and the internalization of managerial norms. Malabou’s essay speaks into these debates by focusing specifically on neuroscientific imagery as a tool for naturalizing such transformations.

2.2 Neuroscientific and Cultural Context

The book appears at a moment sometimes described as the “decade of the brain” extended:

• Advances in neuroimaging (fMRI, PET) and synaptic physiology were widely publicized.
• Concepts such as neuroplasticity, neuroeducation, and neuroeconomics began circulating outside specialist circles.
• Popular works and media presented the brain as a malleable organ, open to training, optimization, and lifelong change.

Proponents of these developments often emphasized empowerment, self-improvement, and recovery from injury, presenting plasticity as a positive, adaptive capacity. Critical theorists and sociologists, by contrast, increasingly examined how “neuro-talk” might support new forms of governance and self-discipline.

2.3 Intellectual Lineages

Malabou’s project draws on, and positions itself within, several traditions:

Within this broader landscape, What Should We Do with Our Brain? participates in the emergence of what some later called critical neuroscience, a field that interrogates the social and political uses of brain science rather than treating it as purely descriptive.

3. Author and Composition

3.1 Catherine Malabou

Catherine Malabou (b. 1959) is a French philosopher whose work spans German Idealism, contemporary French thought, and engagements with biology and neuroscience. Trained under Jacques Derrida, she first gained recognition with L’avenir de Hegel (1996), where she introduced plasticity as a central concept in Hegel’s philosophy.

Her subsequent writings developed plasticity as a cross-disciplinary notion: at once metaphysical, political, and biological. By the time she wrote What Should We Do with Our Brain?, Malabou was already known for bridging abstract philosophical debates and concrete scientific or social phenomena.

3.2 Genesis of the Essay

The essay was composed between approximately 2002 and 2003 and published in French in 2004. It emerged from several converging strands in Malabou’s prior work:

• Her Hegelian research had foregrounded plasticity as a way to describe the dialectical formation and deformation of subjectivity.
• Encounters with contemporary neuroscience led her to notice that the term “plasticity” was gaining prominence there, albeit with a more limited meaning.
• Engagement with political and social theory around neoliberalism and post-Fordism prompted her to consider how brain discourse might intersect with new regimes of work and governance.

According to later interviews and related writings, Malabou conceived the book as a relatively brief, interventionist text rather than a comprehensive treatise—aimed at readers of philosophy and critical theory but also accessible to a broader intellectual audience.

3.3 Publication and Translation

The English edition helped situate Malabou’s work within Anglophone debates on brain science, critical theory, and political philosophy. Subsequent writings, such as The New Wounded and Plasticity at the Dusk of Writing, retrospectively illuminate and expand themes first crystallized in this essay.

4. Structure and Organization of the Essay

What Should We Do with Our Brain? is a relatively short work, but it follows a clear argumentative trajectory that moves from description of contemporary brain science to a political and philosophical revaluation of plasticity.

4.1 Overall Architecture

While chapter titles vary slightly across editions, the essay can be mapped onto five main movements:

4.2 Argumentative Progression

The essay’s organization is cumulative:

1. It first describes, rather than immediately criticizes, the prevalent neuroscientific representation of the brain.
2. It then introduces plasticity as a more complex concept than the common scientific or managerial use suggests.
3. Having drawn this conceptual distinction, it connects the simplified notion of “plastic” or “flexible” brains to the ethical and political demands of contemporary capitalism.
4. The discussion of trauma and catastrophic change furnishes empirical and conceptual support for the idea that plasticity includes a destructive or interruptive dimension.
5. Finally, this expanded understanding of plasticity leads to the question of how to “do” something with our brain—how to appropriate its capacities in a way that does not simply mirror existing social and economic structures.

The result is a text that oscillates between exposition of scientific research, reinterpretation of philosophical concepts, and critical analysis of political economy, with each chapter preparing the ground for the next.

5. The Brain Paradigm in Contemporary Science

5.1 From Localized Organs to Networks

Malabou situates her discussion against the background of late-20th-century neuroscience, in which the brain is increasingly conceptualized as a dynamic network rather than a set of fixed, localized modules. Key features of this “brain paradigm” include:

Malabou draws on neuroscientific work that emphasizes synaptic modification, cortical re-mapping, and functional compensation, highlighting a shift away from rigid localizationism toward plastic and networked models.

5.2 Plasticity in Neuroscience

Within this paradigm, neural plasticity typically denotes the brain’s capacity to change its structure and function. Commonly cited mechanisms include:

• Synaptic strengthening or weakening (e.g., long-term potentiation and depression).
• Reorganization of cortical maps after sensory loss or practice.
• Functional takeover of damaged regions by neighboring or contralateral areas.

Proponents in neuroscience present plasticity as a fundamental property of the brain across the lifespan, challenging earlier views that associated plastic change primarily with childhood. This has led to new therapeutic approaches in rehabilitation, learning, and psychiatry.

5.3 Malabou’s Characterization of the Paradigm

Malabou characterizes contemporary brain science as producing an image of the brain that is:

• Networked: analogous to information and communication networks.
• Adaptive: constantly reorganizing to maintain function in changing conditions.
• Non-hierarchical: less centered on top-down command than on distributed coordination.

She notes that this image circulates not only in technical literature but also in management theory, self-help discourse, and popular media. The brain emerges as a model for how organizations and individuals “should” function—flexible, responsive, decentralized, and permanently reconfigurable.

At this stage, Malabou does not yet offer a full critique; rather, she registers how powerful and pervasive this brain paradigm has become, setting the stage for her subsequent distinction between plasticity and flexibility and for her analysis of its political uses.

6. Plasticity Versus Flexibility

6.1 Defining Plasticity

Malabou’s central conceptual move is to differentiate plasticity from flexibility. Drawing partly on etymology and partly on Hegelian philosophy, she defines plasticity as comprising three interrelated powers:

For Malabou, plasticity is thus not just a matter of adaptability; it involves genuine transformation, including the possibility of rupture.

6.2 Flexibility as a Limiting Concept

By contrast, flexibility is described as a more passive, elastic property:

• It implies the ability to bend without breaking, to adjust within established limits.
• It presupposes that the underlying framework remains intact; deformation is temporary and reversible.
• It is frequently invoked in organizational and managerial discourse as a desirable trait of workers, institutions, and systems.

Malabou argues that much contemporary talk of “plasticity,” both within and beyond neuroscience, actually corresponds more closely to this notion of flexibility: the ability to adapt efficiently to change without threatening the basic order.

6.3 Conceptual and Political Stakes

The distinction is not only terminological. Malabou maintains that conflating plasticity with flexibility has significant implications:

Proponents of the “flexible” reading of plasticity, as Malabou portrays them, tend to present the brain’s malleability as a reason to endorse continuous adaptation—learning to adjust to new conditions, workloads, technologies, and environments.

Malabou’s conceptual elaboration seeks to recover the more disruptive and inventive dimensions of plasticity. In her account, these dimensions are often downplayed or ignored when plasticity is mobilized as a reassuring scientific confirmation that “we can always adapt,” a theme she further connects to neoliberal capitalism in subsequent analysis.

7. Neural Plasticity and Neoliberal Capitalism

7.1 Structural Parallels

A central claim of the essay is that the contemporary representation of the brain mirrors, and thereby legitimizes, the organizational logic of neoliberal and post-Fordist capitalism. Malabou identifies several structural parallels:

She argues that these analogies are not accidental. Rather, they contribute to a naturalization of contemporary economic and managerial practices, presenting them as reflections of our biological makeup.

7.2 Plasticity as an Ideological Resource

In Malabou’s reading, discourses around neural plasticity often function as an ideological resource:

• They encourage individuals to see themselves as responsible for continually updating their skills and attitudes, much as the brain is said to constantly rewire itself.
• They support ideals of autonomy, initiative, and self-entrepreneurship, framed as “liberating” but tethered to market imperatives.
• They recast precariousness and instability as opportunities for self-transformation and “resilience.”

Proponents of these uses present plasticity as a scientific confirmation that human beings are inherently suited to flexible, rapidly changing environments. Critics, including Malabou, view this as a way of internalizing the requirements of neoliberal labor regimes.

7.3 Competing Interpretations

Different perspectives on this linkage appear in the literature surrounding Malabou’s work:

Within the essay itself, Malabou emphasizes the first perspective, suggesting that neuroscience participates—sometimes unwittingly—in shaping a biopolitical regime in which subjects are asked to embody the virtues of the “plastic” brain as continuous flexibility, availability, and self-reinvention.

This analysis prepares the ground for her subsequent insistence on the neglected destructive dimension of plasticity, which she presents as a counter-image to purely adaptive models of change.

8. Trauma, Catastrophe, and Destructive Plasticity

8.1 Catastrophic Plasticity

In contrast to celebratory accounts of plasticity as adaptive and empowering, Malabou introduces the notion of catastrophic or destructive plasticity. This refers to situations in which the brain’s capacity for reorganization results not in recovery or optimization but in:

• Irreversible alteration of personality or cognitive style.
• Loss of prior capacities and dispositions.
• Emergence of a new, sometimes radically different, form of subjectivity.

She draws on clinical and neuroscientific cases where lesions, strokes, or neurodegenerative diseases restructure neural circuits in ways that profoundly transform the person’s behavior and self-relation.

8.2 Neurological Trauma and Subjectivity

Malabou discusses examples in which brain damage leads to the formation of what appears to be a “new person,” not simply a diminished version of the previous one. In such cases:

• The brain does reorganize—demonstrating plasticity—but the outcome is a rupture rather than a restoration of the former identity.
• The subject may no longer recognize their past self, or others may experience them as fundamentally changed.
• Rehabilitation efforts may aim at adaptation to this new condition rather than a return to the old.

For Malabou, these phenomena show that plasticity includes a capacity to break form and produce discontinuity. The brain does not only bend and recover; it can also reconfigure itself around a traumatic event, generating a different mode of existence.

8.3 Theoretical Implications

Malabou interprets destructive plasticity as challenging certain assumptions common in both neuroscience and popular discourse:

Proponents of Malabou’s approach view this emphasis on destruction as an important corrective to overly optimistic narratives of resilience and self-improvement. Some neuroscientists and clinicians, while recognizing the phenomena she highlights, may frame them more cautiously in terms of deficits and compensatory mechanisms rather than as the emergence of wholly new subjects.

In the essay, this “dark side” of plasticity becomes a key resource for thinking about the possibility of radical transformation—not only of individuals, but also, by analogy, of social and political forms.

9. Key Philosophical Sources and Methods

9.1 Hegel and the Concept of Plasticity

Malabou’s reading of plasticity is deeply informed by her earlier work on G. W. F. Hegel. From Hegel she takes:

• The idea that subjectivity is a process of formation (Bildung), involving both reception of form and active self-shaping.
• The central role of negativity and negation, which underpin her insistence that plasticity includes the possibility of destruction or rupture.
• A dialectical method that sees identity as emerging through transformation and contradiction.

While Hegel does not use the term “plasticity” in a systematic biological sense, Malabou reconstructs it as a conceptual thread in his thought and then extends it to the neuroscientific domain.

9.2 Deconstruction and Conceptual Re-inscription

Malabou’s training with Jacques Derrida informs her methodological approach:

• She practices a deconstructive reading of plasticity, showing how the concept is split between passivity (being formed) and activity (forming, destroying).
• She exposes tensions within neuroscientific and popular uses of “plasticity,” arguing that they tacitly rely on a limited, flexible model while disavowing the destructive dimension.
• She then re-inscribes the concept, seeking to transform its meaning from within rather than simply rejecting it.

This method allows her to work simultaneously with philosophical texts and scientific discourses, treating both as sites where conceptual oppositions (plastic/flexible, adaptive/destructive) can be rethought.

9.3 Engagement with Neuroscience

Methodologically, Malabou reads neuroscientific literature philosophically:

• She draws on empirical findings about synaptic modification, cortical remapping, and brain injury but does not offer experimental data of her own.
• She treats scientific models and metaphors—networks, self-organization, plasticity—as conceptual constructions that carry implicit ontological and political assumptions.
• Her approach aligns with philosophy of science and science studies traditions that analyze how scientific representations shape broader imaginaries.

Supporters of this method regard it as a productive way of opening neuroscientific discourse to critical and political reflection. Some critics, especially from within neuroscience, argue that it risks simplifying complex empirical debates or overemphasizing metaphorical aspects.

9.4 Critical Theory and Biopolitics

The essay also draws on, and contributes to, strands of critical theory and biopolitics:

• It analyzes how discourses about the brain function in the governance of populations and the shaping of subjectivity.
• It situates neural plasticity within discussions of post-Fordism, immaterial labor, and neoliberal governmentality, often associated with Marxian and Foucauldian traditions.

In combining these sources—Hegelian dialectics, Derridean deconstruction, neuroscientific research, and critical social theory—Malabou develops a hybrid method that is both conceptual and diagnostic, aiming to show how a scientific image of the brain participates in contemporary forms of power.

10. Famous Passages and Central Claims

10.1 Plasticity Versus Flexibility

One of the most frequently cited passages crystallizes Malabou’s distinction:

"

Plasticity is not the simple ability to change form or to give form. It is also the capacity to annihilate the very form it is able to receive or create.

— Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?

This statement encapsulates her argument that plasticity includes an often neglected destructive or explosive dimension beyond mere adaptability.

10.2 The Brain as Emblem of Contemporary Capitalism

Another central claim concerns the homology between brain models and economic organization. While formulations vary, a widely referenced idea is that:

"

The brain has become the emblem of a new, post-Fordist configuration of capitalism, which recognizes itself in the image of a decentralized, networked, and permanently reconfigurable organ.

Here, Malabou articulates the thesis that neuroscience does not simply describe the brain but also supplies a normative model for how societies and economies should function.

10.3 The Call for a “Consciousness of the Brain”

The essay culminates in the notion of consciousness of the brain:

"

We must learn to see our brain as something other than the natural justification of the world as it is. To become conscious of the brain is to refuse to let it serve as the image of a capitalism that claims to be without alternative.

— Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?

This passage expresses the normative core of the work: the idea that understanding plasticity differently could underwrite new forms of political and social imagination.

10.4 Central Thematic Claims

Across these and other passages, several key claims stand out:

These claims have been central in subsequent discussions of the book, serving as touchstones for debates about brain science, political economy, and the concept of plasticity itself.

11. Political Stakes: Consciousness of the Brain

11.1 Meaning of “Consciousness of the Brain”

Malabou’s phrase consciousness of the brain designates a reflexive attitude in which individuals and collectives recognize:

• That their subjectivity is inseparable from neural plasticity.
• That scientific images of the brain are historically and politically situated.
• That plasticity can be interpreted and mobilized in different, even opposed, ways.

This consciousness is not merely cognitive awareness; it implies a transformation in how subjects relate to their own capacity for change.

11.2 Competing Political Uses of Plasticity

The essay contrasts two broad political uses of plasticity:

Proponents of the adaptive use highlight opportunities for empowerment, learning, and resilience. Malabou, however, underscores how such narratives can mask structural constraints and inequalities by placing the burden of change on individuals’ brains and behaviors.

11.3 From Neural to Social Plasticity

A key political stake is the relation between neural and social plasticity:

• Malabou suggests that recognizing the brain’s capacity for radical reorganization opens the possibility of imagining equally radical transformations at the social and institutional level.
• She resists the idea that biological plasticity simply confirms the inevitability of current economic arrangements, arguing instead that it testifies to a fundamental openness of form.

Some commentators interpret this as a call for new forms of democratic, cooperative, or solidaristic organization modeled not on flexibility but on creative and even disruptive plasticity. Others see the proposal as under-specified, noting that the essay offers limited concrete guidance on institutional design or strategy.

11.4 Debates on the Political Program

Reactions to Malabou’s political stakes vary:

Within the essay, however, “consciousness of the brain” functions as a strategic concept: a way of insisting that if the brain is invoked to justify the existing order, it can also be mobilized to imagine and enact alternatives.

12. Reception and Critiques

12.1 Immediate and Subsequent Reception

Upon its publication in French (2004), Que faire de notre cerveau ? attracted attention primarily within continental philosophy and critical theory. With the 2008 English translation, the work entered broader international debates on neuroscience, subjectivity, and politics. It has since been discussed in fields such as:

• Philosophy of mind and science.
• Critical neuroscience and science and technology studies (STS).
• Political and social theory, particularly around neoliberalism and labor.

Many readers welcomed the book’s originality in connecting brain science with political economy and in offering a non-reductive account of biology.

12.2 Major Lines of Critique

Criticism has emerged from several directions:

12.3 Debates on the Political Program

A recurring critique concerns the indeterminacy of the political program implied by “consciousness of the brain”:

• Supporters see the open-endedness as appropriate to the concept of plasticity itself, which resists predetermined forms.
• Critics argue that the book remains largely at the level of critique and conceptual redefinition, offering few concrete proposals for institutional change or collective action.

There is also debate about whether invoking brain plasticity to support political transformation risks a new neuro-essentialism, even if Malabou explicitly challenges deterministic interpretations. Some authors in critical neuroscience see her work as a valuable ally in questioning “brainhood” as a dominant model of the person, while others propose alternative frameworks (phenomenological, enactive, or sociocultural) that give less centrality to the brain.

12.4 Influence in Scholarship

Despite disagreements, the essay has become a reference point in discussions of:

• The politics of neuroscience and “neuroculture.”
• The concept of resilience and its ambivalent role in contemporary governance.
• Philosophical engagements with plasticity across biology, psychoanalysis, and social theory.

It is frequently cited alongside works by Foucault, Deleuze, and others as part of a broader effort to rethink the relation between life sciences and political power.

13. Related Works and Further Reading

13.1 Malabou’s Own Related Works

Several of Malabou’s other books deepen and extend themes introduced in What Should We Do with Our Brain?:

These works are often recommended to readers seeking a fuller understanding of Malabou’s conceptual apparatus and its applications.

13.2 Critical Neuroscience and Philosophy of the Brain

A number of texts engage explicitly or implicitly with Malabou’s approach:

13.3 Broader Context: Biopolitics and Neoliberalism

Readers interested in the political and economic context of Malabou’s arguments often turn to:

• Works on biopolitics (e.g., Michel Foucault’s lectures, Giorgio Agamben) for conceptual tools regarding the governance of life.
• Analyses of post-Fordism and immaterial labor (e.g., Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Maurizio Lazzarato) that describe the transformation of work in ways resonant with Malabou’s focus on cognitive and affective dimensions.
• Studies of resilience and governance that examine how adaptability and flexibility are promoted as social norms.

13.4 Neurophilosophy and Alternatives

Other philosophers of mind and science offer differing accounts of the relation between brain, self, and society:

• Enactive and embodied cognition theorists (e.g., Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson) emphasize the role of body and environment alongside the brain.
• Sociocultural approaches to mind and development explore how practices, institutions, and language shape cognition, sometimes downplaying the centrality of neural plasticity.

Engaging these works alongside Malabou’s essay allows readers to situate her proposals within a wider field of competing models of mind–society relations.

14. Legacy and Historical Significance

14.1 Place in Contemporary Continental Philosophy

What Should We Do with Our Brain? is widely regarded as a key text in early 21st-century continental philosophy, particularly for:

• Introducing plasticity as a bridge concept linking Hegelian dialectics, deconstruction, and contemporary biology.
• Shifting debates about the brain beyond the binary of determinism versus free will to questions about how scientific images shape political and economic imaginaries.

It has contributed to a broader “biological turn” in philosophy, where life sciences are not only critiqued but also mined for new conceptual resources.

14.2 Contribution to Critical Neuroscience

Within emerging fields of critical neuroscience and “neuroculture” studies, the essay is often cited as:

• An early and influential attempt to analyze how neuroscientific metaphors—networks, plasticity, self-organization—participate in governing subjectivity.
• A stimulus for interdisciplinary dialogue between philosophers, neuroscientists, and social scientists about the political uses of brain research.

Its emphasis on the social life of neuroscientific concepts has helped legitimize inquiries that treat brain science as a socio-historical practice rather than a purely neutral description of nature.

14.3 Long-Term Influence on Concepts of Plasticity and Resilience

The book’s redefinition of plasticity has had enduring effects across fields:

14.4 Ongoing Debates and Reassessments

Over time, commentators have reassessed the strengths and limits of Malabou’s intervention:

• Some see her work as prescient, anticipating later concerns about the “neuropolitics” of resilience, self-tracking, and cognitive enhancement.
• Others argue that subsequent developments in neuroscience and in capitalism itself require updating or refining the analogies she drew.
• A number of thinkers have sought to extend her insights into domains such as gender, race, and ecology, exploring how plasticity might intersect with these axes of power and vulnerability.

Despite divergent evaluations, What Should We Do with Our Brain? is widely viewed as a landmark in rethinking the relation between brain science and politics. Its core questions—how to interpret neural plasticity and what social forms it might support—continue to inform contemporary debates about the biological and political shaping of subjectivity.