Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T21:52:31.738Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

19 - The normal state

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2014

Ian Hacking
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Get access

Summary

Until Broussais, the pathological state obeyed laws completely different from those governing the normal state, so that observation of one could decide nothing for the other. Broussais established that the phenomena of disease are of essentially the same kind as those of health, from which they differed only in intensity.

The collective organism, because of its greater degree of complexity, is liable to problems more serious, varied and frequent than those of the individual organism. I do not hesitate to state that Broussais's principle must be extended in that direction, and I have often applied it there to confirm or perfect sociological laws. But those who would apply the analysis of Revolutions to the Positive study of Society must pass through the logical training given by the simpler phenomena of Biology.

Normality is like determinism, both timeless and dated, an idea that in some sense has been with us always, but which can in a moment adopt a completely new form of life. As a word, ‘determinism’ came into use in the 1780s, and assumed its present most common meaning in the 1850s. As a word, ‘normal’ is much older, but it acquired its present most common meaning only in the 1820s. Now although the two words are conspirators in the taming of chance, they enter in very different ways. The normal was one of a pair. Its opposite was the pathological and for a short time its domain was chiefly medical. Then it moved into the sphere of — almost everything.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Taming of Chance , pp. 160 - 169
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • The normal state
  • Ian Hacking, University of Toronto
  • Book: The Taming of Chance
  • Online publication: 05 June 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511819766.019
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • The normal state
  • Ian Hacking, University of Toronto
  • Book: The Taming of Chance
  • Online publication: 05 June 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511819766.019
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The normal state
  • Ian Hacking, University of Toronto
  • Book: The Taming of Chance
  • Online publication: 05 June 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511819766.019
Available formats
×