Morphing Intelligence

In this remarkable book Catherine Malabou focuses on the transformations of “intelligence” as it moves from genetics to epigenetics to automatism. Historically grounded, philosophically astute, and engagingly written, this book is highly recommended for anyone interested in intelligence—artificial and natural—and in contemporary configurations of what counts as human. -- N. Katherine Hayles, author of <i>Unthought: The Power of the Cognitive Nonconscious</i> Catherine Malabou is one of the rare philosophers who seriously engages contemporary biological research in her explorations of human experience. In this book, she turns her attention to the core question of intelligence, and with spectacular results. At stake is the very future of human thought, and Malabou is led to reflect on machine intelligence for the first time, generating singular insights. As ever, Malabou’s prose is precise and elegant, deftly expressed in Carolyn Shread’s fluid translation. -- David Bates, coeditor of <i>Plasticity and Pathology: On the Formation of the Neural Subject</i> Morphing Intelligence contains significant new developments in Malabou’s ongoing work at the intersections of philosophy and the sciences. She moves from her groundbreaking theoretical reflections on neuroplasticity and epigenetics to a philosophical confrontation with the various challenges posed by today’s emerging forms of artificial intelligence. Malabou, with her characteristic clarity and insight, radically redraws the lines between humans and machines, brains and computers. Morphing Intelligence is a major achievement and not to be missed. -- Adrian Johnston, author of <i>A New German Idealism Hegel, Žižek, and Dialectical Materialism</i> However, the emergence of radically new forms of intelligence cannot be denied anymore. Morphing Intelligence thus makes us repeat with a sense of urgency Malabou’s original question: what should we do with our brain? * The Wire * [Malabou's] prose is precise, her research carefully articulated, and her conclusions realistic yet hopeful. -- N. Katherine Hayles, Duke University * Critical Inquiry * In Morphing Intelligence, we see Catherine Malabou’s unique ability to mend empirical studies and neuroscience with biopolitics, Hegelian dialectics, and Kantian transcendentalism, weaving an elaborate . . . arachnean matrix. * Chiasma *