The Normal and the Pathological

by Georges Canguilhem

Book Overview

The Normal and the Pathological is one of the crucial contributions to the history of science in the last half century. It takes as its starting point the sudden appearance of biology as a science in the nineteenth century and examines the conditions determining its particular makeup.

Canguilhem analyzes the radically new way in which health and disease were defined in the early nineteenth century, showing that the emerging categories...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0942299590
• ISBN13: 9780942299595
• Release Date: October 1991
• Publisher: Zone Books
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

The Normal and the Pathological is undeniably brilliant.

It would seem that it takes a brilliant person to understand (or maybe just articulate) the obvious. Here the obvious, is that that which is perceived as pathological is only pathological in relation to that which is perceived as normal. To make this clear, for some, a homosexual person is perceived as a pathology (in this sense, simply out of the ordinary), yet in many societies (a few South East Asian countries, Ancient Greek and Japan, etc)it was a well accepted part of everyday life. To put this in medical terms, we only know that something is normal insofar as we understand its pathological state. Who is to say which is pathological then? To simplify this book (a bit too much), Pathology is relative. Canguilhem points to the importance of the process and move between the normal and the pathological. Canguilhem writes what Indian and East Asian (and most "native/indigenous" societies have been writing and talking about for millenia: that is, that their are constructive and destructive forces in every slice of matter. Who or what is it going to take for "The West" to come to terms with these ideas? Canguilhem understands it and writes it most clearly in this book. Read it and learn (sorry for the cliche) that death and life are not important, it is the process that is. Mind you, this was my reading of the book. Canguilhem was a medical doctor, who writes quite scientifically (though not difficultly). He (I think) never makes a specific reference to a specific social phenomenon as I have with homosexuality. However, he was also trained in philosophy and very explicitly uses numerous philosophers to bring across his point and therefore quite obviously hints at his writings usage in the social sciences.

Inspiration for Foucault

Canguilhem was Foucault's teacher, and this book "The Normal and the Pathological," was the foundation for Foucault's theories of the sociohistorical construction of what constitutes normality.