ABSTRACT One of the under-theorised aspects of Catherine Malabou’s What Should We Do With Our Brain? is the overtly political project that underpins her discussion of a renewed conception of subjectivity. Malabou's political project is framed in radical and emancipatory terms, and yet the possibilities and limitations that stem from of a neurobiological account of politics have been left under-explored. Can we really locate in the brain a progressive politics, especially in the context of debates around mental illness, when so many groups and individuals are resistant to understanding themselves as their brains? Or is this affirmation of scientific materialism at risk of obscuring the realities and complexities of the materiality of cultural practice? In order to pursue the political consequences of her work, this paper looks to stage an encounter between Malabou's account of neuroplasticity and Lauren Berlant's notion of cruel optimism. This is done in order to ask: do Malabou’s own critiques of neoliberal flexibility run the risk of embracing a neuro-liberalism, in which an optimism regarding plasticity, individual liberty, and compromise between the humanities and life-sciences obscures the political limitations of neuroscience as a site for political-philosophy?

中文翻译：

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脑力：Catherine Malabou 作品中的残酷乐观主义和神经自由主义

摘要 凯瑟琳·马拉布 (Catherine Malabou) 的理论不足的方面之一我们应该如何处理我们的大脑？是公开的政治项目，支持她对更新的主体性概念的讨论。马拉布的政治计划是以激进和解放的方式构建的，然而，政治的神经生物学解释所产生的可能性和局限性尚未得到充分探索。我们真的可以在大脑中找到一种进步的政治，尤其是在围绕精神疾病的辩论中，当如此多的团体和个人抵制将自己理解为他们的大脑时？或者，这种对科学唯物主义的肯定是否有可能掩盖文化实践物质性的现实和复杂性？为了追求她工作的政治后果，这篇论文试图在 Malabou 的神经可塑性解释和 Lauren Berlant 的残酷乐观主义概念之间进行一次相遇。这样做是为了问：马拉布自己对新自由主义灵活性的批评是否冒着接受神经自由主义的风险，其中对可塑性、个人自由以及人文科学与生命科学之间妥协的乐观主义掩盖了神经科学的政治局限性作为政治哲学的网站？