Plasticity and Pathosophy. Narrative Identity, Motor Patterns and Biographical Method Between Weizsäcker and Malabou

Abstract

The subject of the contribution is the relationship between the concept of plasticity developed by Catherine Malabou, especially in its meaning of “destructive plasticity”, and Viktor von Weizsäcker’s reflection on the “pathic”, from the writings of the 1920s dedicated to medical anthropology and the refoundation of a relational metaphysics, up to the complete elaboration of a pathosophy. Both for the German physician and thinker and for the French philosopher, the intertwining of the question of the living being, the form and the rearticulation of narrative identity leads to outcomes capable of profoundly questioning our time. A particular in-depth analysis is dedicated to the dislocation of narrative identity with specific reference to some examples of contemporary narration both with reference to the critical work of W.G. Sebald, and through a specific survey relating to Scandinavian literatures, between the poetry of Inger Christensen – now inscribed in the canon of those literatures – and the very recent experiments in the writing of Naja Marie Aidt.