The Ontology of the Accident An Essay on Destructive Plasticity

"Situating the concept of plasticity within the history of philosophy, specifically the work of Hegel, Catherine Malabou has developed the means of invigorating philosophy's relation to science. Here she takes up the challenge of rethinking 'destruction', 'negativity', 'loss' and 'death'; terms which stand opposed to plasticity within the structure of plasticity itself. This work marks a significant development in Malabou's important philosophical project."
Andrew Benjamin, Monash University
 
"Through profiles of Spinoza, Deleuze, Proust, Kafka, Duras, Freud and others, Catherine Malabou has produced an exciting extension of her analysis of plasticity in its darkest and most disturbing dimension. Explosive plasticity - catastrophe, breakdown, destruction without remission, repair or promise - sculpts a new deformed form, a deviation in being as a form of being, an adieu to life while still alive, each with a phenomenology of its own. Her exploration of the accident as a category of being confirms once again her reputation as one of the brightest stars of the new generation of French philosophers."
John D. Caputo, Syracuse University