Can you define Normal?
I don't think normal is equivalent to natural (which resorts to central tendancy).
So what is acceptable? What is psychopathy? What is abnormal? What is supernatural?
So what is acceptable? What is psychopathy? What is abnormal? What is supernatural?
Comments (91)
If I go to work at my office desk job one day and don't get violently stabbed, that would be "normal."
If I go to work at my job as a correctional officer in a poorly-run prison and someone else gets violently stabbed, that would also be "normal" (perhaps?).
Bear in mind we can hold inaccuracies, perhaps even full-fledged delusions as far as what is "typical" or "expected", particularly for those new or inexperienced or who otherwise don't really explore the full depth and area of a particular scenario or circumstance (ie. "living in a bubble" or "wearing rose-colored glasses" or simply just being fortunate enough to live a charmed or otherwise privileged life).
I want a definition of normal, and a one liner universal philosophical definition.
You’re asking for a single, universal philosophical definition of “normal,” but the very concept of normal is context-dependent and relative.
And perhaps more interestingly, how do we tell that a mooted definition is true, or even accurate?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/7110/how-to-write-an-op
Normal has a scientific and critical foundation, often an organic, developmental, or evolutionary progression.
Natural is a trend in a given time period -- often studied statistically or probabilistic. For example, there is no 'normal' in life expectancy, only natural.
Sure. It’s within one standard deviation of the mean.
It’s called a normal distribution.
No, @Outlander is describing "normal". Normal is all about expectation. To meet expectation is to be normal .
"Natural" is an entirely different concept. To be "natural" is to be free from influence. "Whose influence?" is context dependent. Usually, but not always, to be natural is to be free from human influence.
Normal is a philosophically paradoxical term.
It can? Wittgenstein and Austin and a few others might differ. There's also an obvious problem of circularity.
See, this is what's annoying. If you can definitively reject a definition, that means you already have your own.
How do you wish us to coax out your own ingrained belief and standards for you today, sir? Would you like a towel and foot rub with that as well?
Maybe you should give yourself a name you can live up to.
For that being of sufficient intelligence, “normal” is that in the negation of which, is irrational.
:point: :point: Quoting T Clark
This definition requires a judge of what is to be "expected." Who will judge what is to be expected? Who will decide if that fits the definition of "normal?"
In one particular individual's life, we may refer to what is normal - what is routine - in their life.
When we try to apply the concept of "normality" to all human beings - who demonstrate a great deal of variation - the concept kind of breaks down.
We may say it is normal to breathe, it is normal for a heart to beat, it is normal to like chocolate chip cookies, it is normal to love your mother, but when we try to extend the concept of "normalcy" to all characteristics of all humans, it cannot work without marginalizing people who don't fit the parameters of what others "expect."
Also, to me, natural means it happens or is made up according to the laws of the physical universe - a materialistic point of view, I suppose.
Normality has both social and scientific origin. They are the judgements on the phenomena which fit in the realm of observed events, acts or behaviour by the set principles or expectations within the society or in the theories, principles or laws of Science.
This definition covers a large chunk of usage, but not all of it.
"Let events follow their natural course". What is "natural" here is not nature's laws, the sentence more likely refers to human events. For events to "follow their natural course" means that they proceed without intervention, where what intervention cons is determined by context. "To rely on your natural ability" mainly means to forego training, not necessarily to forego technological augmentation such as fancy gear or doping.
The most general meaning of "natural" is freedom from intervention, not following natural laws. It is just that human intervention is the sort of intervention often implied when "natural" is used.
Of course. That is how the word works. The speaker may have an idea of what "normal" is, the listener may share it, or may not. They talk past each other to the degree that their concepts of "normal" differ. The listener may realize this, or may not have a concept of normal at all, and ask, "What is 'normal' here?"
Quoting Questioner
Why does it break down? Sure they display variation, but this variation is still within pretty tight bands. Human variation is far from pure chaos. There are innumerable patterns that may be used to define normality.
Quoting Questioner
When applied to humans (which is only a fraction of the usage of 'normal'), yes this kind of marginalization happens. What of it? You may think this shouldn't happen; but it does. Maybe we shouldn't use the word with humans at all; but we do.
It is best to describe prescriptive baggage when defining a word, describing how it actually functions.
What criteria do you use to decide if they are normal or not? We're made up of a lot of different parts and behaviors.
"Normal" is a limiting term - and since we are all humans, we should all be included as full humans?
What is the purpose of being able to call someone "abnormal?" What is the application of that?
Quoting hypericin
It may lead to suppression or oppression.
It depends on what we are talking about. Behavior? Physiology? Ability? Appearance?
Quoting Questioner
To describe. To give context to a description of someone's behavior, physiology, ability, or appearance. Where do these fall within the human spectrum?
To diagnose. Sometimes abnormality indicates a problem that requires correction.
To reward or praise. Where spectrums are value-laden, norms can be exceeded as well as fail to be met.
To exclude. Humans are often excluded based on abnormality, for reasons that are legitimate as well as reasons we would probably object to.
Quoting Questioner
Indeed, it may. But this belongs in a discussion of the ethics of normality, not the meaning.
This just sounds like judging people, and this can be fraught with potential for abuse.
It slots all humans into a hierarchy (which is then equated to worthiness) and as we all know this has not gone well in the past. We can talk about majorities, and minorities, but minorities are as normal - and natural - as the majority.
I can't think of a reason to exclude an individual from humanity.
Difference is normal.
Keeping in mind this is a definition, not the definition.
Isn't natural tendency inherent character or states from the birth or origin of objects or agents? Normal is expected state, situation, response or character which are induced or forced via environmental, social or devised factors and systems.
Temperatures significantly above or below that value are dangerous to health. It’s reasonable for me to say a temperature of 104° or 93° is abnormal.
I disagree. If the question is: having how many fingers is normal? The average or mean (less than 10) isn't "normal", neither is the median, nor your range. The correct answer is the mode, that is: 10.
In the post I just submitted, I was talking about human body temperature, not number of fingers. Number of fingers is not normally distributed, although most characteristics, including body temperature, are.
Actually, as I think about it, my definition would work for your situation also. The arithmetic mean of the number of fingers on a human hand would be very close to 10, so that my identification of normal as within one standard deviation of the mean would still be reasonable.
Normal is not to ask what is "normal".
In a normal distribution, the mode, mean, and the median are all the same. For characteristics with a non-normal distribution, it probably doesn’t make sense to talk about normality at all. That certainly is true of a bimodal distribution.
I’ll say it again, my definition is a reasonable one, but it’s not the only reasonable one.
Fortunately, ChatGPT already does that for us.
Stay weird my friends.
You’re not paying any attention to what I said. We’ve taken this far enough. I am all done.
It gave me the following:
______________________
1. Range of uses (family of senses)
“Normal” is not univocal. It operates across several neighbouring but distinct practices:
1. Statistical
Normal ? common, average, within a distribution.
Here, abnormal need not imply bad—only rare.
2. Functional / teleological
Normal ? working as it should.
This invokes standards of function, not frequency.
3. Normative / social
Normal ? socially expected or acceptable.
Here “normal” quietly slides into ought.
4. Medical / clinical
Normal ? absence of pathology.
Crucially, this is contrastive with pathological, not immoral or rare.
5. Conversational / reassuring
Normal as a speech-act:
The function is to allay concern, not to describe statistics.
2. Characteristic contrasts
Austin insists we ask: what does it contrast with here?
The contrast chosen fixes the sense. Many philosophical confusions arise from sliding between these without notice.
3. Conditions of correct application
We do not call something normal when:
4. Misuses and temptations
Austin would highlight several philosophical temptations:
5. What “normal” is not
6. Philosophical moral (very Austinian)
“Normal” is a context-governed, contrastive, interest-relative term. Its philosophical danger lies precisely in how ordinary it is: it does work quietly, often without announcing which job it is doing.
_________________
Pretty good, I reckon. Shows how limited the conversation has been, focusing on only the first item in the first sense - statistics. Plenty of good material here for a discussion.
and now ChatGPT will remember how to format stuff for Plush forums... I hope.
"Normal" talk seemed to smuggle back in judgment of the person, endangering calling some people abnormal and then figuring out what needed be done to normalize them.
That then led us to ask "what is it to be "normal" anyway?" I think that's a tangential rabbit hole to go down. As long as we don't attribute worth to normality, the issue of normality remains only a statistical consideration for the engineer who wants to build a sidewalk ramp as accommodating to as many as possible.
We can recognize that our definition of disability is imperfect where it speaks only of environmental deficiency and not of human deficiency, and we can insist upon such a definition without being disosant just because our goal isn't definitional perfection. Our goal is promotion of Enlightenment happiness. How we refer to people and how we think of people matters in how we treat people, and so if the achievement of better "doing" is served, that is sufficient whether we've sorted out the dozens of varieties of normalness.
But here I'll repeat the quote:
Quoting Banno
And note that these are ubiquitous in the responses so far. The discussion of "normal" hasn't yet begun.
Natural in the sense that something is natural in a subject due to the subject's existing conditions -- negative or positive environmental factors. That's why it is trendy because its environmental factors could change after a period of time. A good example of this is the human life expectancy over 100 years ago compared to now.
Normal in the sense that it is undoubtedly in the scientific sense that homo sapiens is different from homo neanderthalensis. They cannot interchange each other as differences in cranial and brow bones are significantly different.
[Edit]
So to me, the definition of normal is one of a hard-and-fast condition in which the features or properties of a subject are the benchmark for measurement.
But
Quoting Banno
I'm confused. Do we both agree that natural and normal are two different things?
I like the word "organic." Meaning, arising naturally without being the result of an external actor or agent. I especially like how it can be applied to situations and circumstance. Example, a few years back I had a court date early in the morning and woke up that morning to find my car door open with the battery completely drained. I live very far away so this ordinarily would have resulted in a missed court date and possible legal complication. I know I had a few beers the night before so I could get to sleep early, but nowhere near enough to result in temporary alcohol-induced amnesia that would make me arise from sleep to sit in my vehicle in the middle of the night (or was it?). This hounded me for quite some time (and still does). Did someone try to sabotage me with the hope that I would miss an important court date? Or did the unfortunate situation actually arise organically and was simply of my own doing? It haunts me to this day.
Pardon the unsolicited anecdote. :smile:
"Normal", as I understand it, is something that is "logical" or "true" (we'll need to now define what they are) from the lens of a completely blind observer—someone who is unaware of reality, physical laws, statistics.
And presumably then you will requirer definitions for the terms used to define "Local" and "true"; and then for those terms, in turn.
Do you not see the problem?
Not following this one closely, but this resonates with me.
The word normal is also often used as a quasi-virtue. Not merely a statement of social acceptability but a marker of goodness.
I hope so.
Usual, normal and typical are truer synonyms.
I am curious why you say 'supernatural' rather than 'unnatural'?
In terms of flexibility, I would say 'natural' has a different set of polysemic uses to the other three cases. That there is overlap is likely due to how metaphorical usage slowly alters into literal usage overtime.
In terms of basic sturtural use 'usual' is perhaps closer to 'natural' as they both use the same prefix in 'un-' whereas the other two have more unusual (or less 'natural') structures. it does sound out of place to say 'natural' here because creativity in linguistics allows for a greater sense of flexibility in how words can be repurposed.
I would say it is abnormal for humans to have more or less than two legs, and I would say that it is unnatural for humans to have more or less than two legs.
In short:
Quoting Copernicus
It can be. Just like an apple is equivalent to a banana if we are using them as examples of fruit, natural and normal are equivalent if using them as examples of commonalities only, not specifically. Reminds me of how 'little' is used more by children and 'small' more by adults--certain cultural 'norms' of use, or 'natural' uses, dictate how we receive what is being said.
And who is it, and by what means of measure, is a usage defined as "common" or "lay usage"?
I fail to see the solution even more.
The norm is a point of semantic balance between extremes
Normal, as I see it, is something like within the range of expected results or behavior. Normal often implies consistency, routine, expectedness.
But then we soon hit walls. For someone with remarkable athletic skills, say Michael Joran, a normal day playing basketball is scoring 20 (I don't know) points. That is not the average for a non-professional.
And we can expand this in all kinds of ways.
But I don't think we can provide a comprehensive definition of "normal". It's somewhat as Wittgenstein said, the meaning of a word is how we use it in language.
That;s what happens when you ask questions without answers.
I didn't know questions were asked after the answers were found.
Nature is synonymous with Normal, but not always. Why is this such a problem for you? Do you have the same issue with Usual and Typical?
Words are words. They are not reality.
Are any of these concerns peculiar to the word "normal," or are we using "normal" here just as an exemplar term to show the limitations of language generally and how error might creep in?
Would the word "book" or "run" work equally well here. What I would say about the term "normal" that makes it useful for the analysis is perhaps all of its obscured connotations that reveal when usage is analyzed. That is, when we say something is normal (following my numbers above), ) (1) we might be pointing at something concrete with in its nature (that is a normal apple in that it is red, round, etc.), or (2) it might be referencing statistical consistency (that is a normal apple in that varies minimally from the average), or (3) that it references something definitionally and analytically (all apples are red, that object is not red, therefore that is not an apple), or (4) that it references something moral (an apple is good because it provided Adam knowledge of good and evil).
I point this out to make the larger point that we can decide if our objective here is simply to offer a comprehensive dictionary where we consider as many contextual variations of the term "normal" and provide that for consideration or whether to take the more abstract question and ask how we define anything and whether there is a challenge the word "normal" provides that other terms do not.
Maybe the term "normal" with all its connotations provides us with a better diagnostic tool to show how usage and meaning are tied together, which might be lost with the words run and book, just because those don't have as many subtelties. But maybe they do and we've just not thought those through.
It's abnormal to be normal
Normal is a bullseye no dart ever hits.
It's not the semantics but the true philosophical depth of the definition.
Ontology and Epistemology are effectively the same, but also different. If that is what you are getting at?
Good one! Obviously folks can be normal in a few (cherrypicked) variables, but to possess the overall quality of normal (implying being normal in each and every possible variable), while possible, has never been observed.
That is a very powerful way of stating the crux of normalcy.
A dart is a material object with size that pokes out a disk shaped hole in a material plate.
But we or they pick the target each time by our or their latest standard of normalcy, and if that conventional dimensionless point or one-dimensional extent always shifts around anyway by its own nature, then if it was there, where is it now and how could I ever know?
Exactly!
Natural is just anything that happens without human, artificial intervention. Man-made systems are unnatural.
What is common is only what we as people come to expect in our circumstances within our life and time scale. 6-inch hale stones are natural but uncommon. So is snow in the Sahara.
Not peculiar, but part of the make up of the language game around its use.
I'm certainly using this discussion to show the many problems with thinking that definitions are central to philosophy, that definitions give the meaning of a word, that we ought first define our terms, and so on.
Quoting Hanover
Yep.
Well there's "natural" and there's "Natural". To use the umbrella term of Natural (describing each and every thing that occurs in Nature, including 6 inch hailstones), while accurate, adds little beyond the label. OTOH, using the term natural to describe a particular behavior of a wild animal in it's natural habitat, identifies it's common behavior, unaffected by human intervention.
In the first example, an Unnatural thing would mean artificial or man-made, in the latter case unnatural would mean unusual or aberrant.
The idea of distinguishing artificial man-made from what is natural is useful in many ways.
As example, many large spherical rocks seen in a valley could be either monuments from a prehistoric civilization or sedimentary accidental rocks that rolled downward at the bottom of an ancient ocean that used to cover that land.
For the sake of this discussion, human acts that create artificial things can be phrased as human agency with or without intent. People are considered materially, socially, even morally responsible for their acts. Nature is an 'act of God' and animals are not held or should not be held responsible for any act or consequence. If a mountain slide buries my Swiss village who do we sue?
Quoting LuckyR
Who is to say what is common behavior for wild animals? Common behavior is everything each animal of a species does? Or is it what we happen to see them doing?
Quoting LuckyR
Unusual or aberrant according to who? If sparrows kill other sparrows what do we make of that?
Definition in this context is limiting the application of a word. You can define a block of wood, not with observation, thought and speech, but with saws and chisels.
In the case of the sparrows I find their behavior abhorrent, nature doesn't.
Because of that and other practical reasons I will not allow them on my bird feeder. But, you see, that is my judgment not nature's.
The hidden natural agent that might have spurred the sparrows on is random and probabilistic. Their randomly altered genes favoring murder of chicks of their peers probabilistically survives, although I can't even speculate how that might help their species. Bigger is not necessarily better in the city. It sure doesn't help them in my backyard.
So, subjective expectation? Assume a morning walk for a schizophrenic, for example. Randomness and the unexpected becomes the expected (i.e. the typical experience).
Or do we instead base this on "most common" outcomes or experience for the average person? But how large a sampling do we use to determine what's "typical" or expected? A given society or state? A particular landmass or continent? All of the globe? What if we discover other planets with life? Do we factor them in as well?
See, it's not always quite so simple. Hence the OP.
Say a man has character, he has a typical experience which always recurrs, because being is an empty fiction.
And it really is quite that simple.