Alzheimer e plasticità. Ripensare la natura delle neurodegenerazioni

(Alzheimer and Plasticity: Rethinking the Nature of Neurodegenerations)

Abstract

Demographic and epidemiological statistics show that the progressive ageing of the population and the increase of the many diseases linked to it are one of the most urgent problems of the Western world. In fact, the progressive increase of expectation of the life span gives birth to new shapes, new languages and dynamics of subjectivity. These new developments are still a prerogative of medical, psychological, and neuroscientific research. Philosophy should pay more attention to this existential form, not only because of the sense of urgency that accompanies the issue but also because of the important theoretic implications that arise from it. Catherine Malabou’s work on the concept of plasticity is a first step in this direction, recognizing the work of the negative and its peculiar way of formation in neurodegenerative diseases. In this essay, I show how the connection between the concept of plasticity and the Alzheimer’s disease permits to rethink the concept of nature.