Summary of “The Normal and the Pathological”

In chapter six of Georges Canguilhem’s “Knowledge of Life”, the author brings up an important point about what it means to be normal or abnormal and that a physician must make a judgment about the separating line between the pathological and the healthy. Canguilhem breaks down these concepts and uses support from other writes to develop an interpretation of what it means to be normal, abnormal and ultimately what it means to be healthy.

To begin, Canguilhem tries to define the concept of being normal. He says it sometimes is the mean of a measurement of a certain trait to the extent at which deviations are considered insignificant and that it is also sometimes viewed as a positive indicator of an ideal situation for a trait. He believes that this gives rise to the main ambiguity in the term “normal” and concludes that there is no concrete or absolute meaning for the term.

Secondly, Canguilhem tires to define the concept of being abnormal or pathological. He believes that the pathological isn’t necessarily a divergence from the norm but life contained at a norm that is vitally inferior or depreciated. He uses Goldstien as support this claim that he also believed that pathological life was when an organism is forced to live a life where it doesn’t have the capacity to meet the demands of the new situation.

In conclusion, Canguilhem believes that what it means to be healthy isn’t necessarily that an organism doesn’t get sick or develop diseases but that the organism has the capability to overcome a certain crisis and establish a new viable physiological order. Through his own analysis and by drawing support through other writes, Canguilhem considers a viable meaning to being healthy as the ability of an organism to overcome an “organic crisis”.