Paul Halmos - Towards a Measure of Man

The International Library of Sociology

TOWARDS A MEASURE OF MAN

The International Library of Sociology

SOCIOLOGY OF BEHAVIOUR AND PSYCHOLOGY

In 18 Volumes

TOWARDS A MEASURE OF MAN

The Frontiers of Normal Adjustment

by

PAUL HALMOS

First published in 1957 by

Routledge

Reprinted in 1998, 2001 by

Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Transferred to Digital Printing 2007

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

1957 Paul Halmos

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Towards a Measure of Man

ISBN 0-415-17800-2

The Sociology of Behaviour and Psychology: 18 Volumes

ISBN 0-415-17834-7

The International Library of Sociology: 274 Volumes

ISBN 0-415-17838-X

Publishers Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent

Preface

T ODAY sociologists file away their facts and findings in unlabelled cabinets which have no alphabetical index. The cabinets are also widely dispersed and no single sociologist is in a position to be familiar with the location of all of them. Having largely inherited the filing cabinets from social sciences which had been established in business a good deal earlier than sociology, sociology was loath to discard them and is still clinging to them in a pennywise fashion.

Alas this clinging is a virtue of thrifty beginnings and not of epoch-making enterprises. The present book certainly does not claim to be epoch-making. If anything it is a gamble with the accumulated small change of modern psychological knowledge in the hope of winning some of the coveted prizes of sociology and perhaps even of moral philosophy. Yet should my book be branded as a rash enterprise it may still have been well worth the adventure of writing it, for, as it is often observed, even those contribute to the exploration of a maze who come back only to report the itinerary of their failures. Furthermore it seems to me that, even if my stake proves unwise, it will be a gamble of this sort which will eventually rescue social science from its present predicament.

This book deals centrally with the concepts of normal and abnormal in human personality and behaviour. It seeks to establish whether one or the other of these can be defined and thereby an absolute measure of man educed. The string of essays which follows opens with a discourse on the first principles upon which the subsequent chapters depend. Here I shall rely on metaphysical, biological, and psychological information. Following this I develop my arguments to a stage when the conditions of defining the human norm or abnorm are within our view. Thereupon the conclusion I shall reach is that, even though normality is indefinable, the minimum area of abnormality is already a subject of substantial agreement. Yet if my definition of abnormal adjustment, my abnorm, will stand the test of time it will inevitably work in an indirect manner as a minimum norm as well. Thereafter I shall be obliged to pay special attention to the exceptional performances in creative work where the abnorm may be easily confused with the necessary or even with the meritorious. A chapter is devoted to examining the relationship between artistic, political, and scientific achievement and the concept of the abnorm. After this I shall turn to the problem of insight upon which the whole question of evidence will largely depend. For without sufficient evidence resistance to my conclusions would forestall any impact I may hope to make on sociological theory and eventually on social action. That no striking impact on social science is anticipated by my conclusions is made clear by their very nature. In the concluding chapter the ground is prepared to match my sociology of adjustment with an adjustment of sociology.

Some years ago, when I first composed a brief outline of this work, I had several discussions with Dr. Portia Holman who saved me much labour by giving me valuable criticisms at that early stage. I wish to record my thanks to her. To Professor Aubrey Lewis I am indebted for a timely warning and advice without which my work would have been sidetracked and considerably delayed. I am most grateful to Dr. Mary Wilson for reading my manuscript and correcting some of its errors. I should like to thank my friend George Buchanan for a searching and sympathetic appraisal of my ideas; he too prompted me to think again when complacency had halted reflection. As in the past so now again I could count on Professor T. H. Marshall to size up and review my work. I wish to express to him my warmest appreciation for some must useful suggestions. It gives me pleasure to write here of my great indebtedness to Dr. Eva Ruth Balken without whose generosity I could not have created the conditions of privacy so necessary for scholarly work. And finally I should like to say that Mrs. Irene Davies gave much of her time and her incisive judgment while assisting me with the final revision of this works form, style, and substance. To her I am particularly grateful.