The Concept of Normativity in History and Historiography

What is it about?

The phrases "normal", "normally" and "normality" have been much used, especially during the recent pandemic. At the same time, the idea that the past provides "normative" guidance to the present is an old one. The essay examines the history of this notion from antiquity to Covid 19, distinguishing between 3 different types of normativity: metaphysical (whether an event can be deemed possible within the rules of the universe); phenomenal (whether the event has in fact occurred); and moral (the ethical or moral lesson attached to the event. The antonyms of normal such as "deviant", "monstrous", "enormous" etc are also considered, as is the 18th and 19th century transformation of the association of "normal" and "beautiful" by the advent of probability theory, and the concept of the aesthetic sublime.

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Why is it important?

Prior works on historical normativity concentrate exclusively on the moral aspects as opposed to the cognitive and epistemological aspects of norms, and do not take adequate account of the relative recency in western culture of a vocabulary to denote "normal" and "norms". The essay works from both an intellectual history and philosophical perspective to demonstrate that normativity is in fact a fundamental tool for the analysis of the past, and, in different combinations of the 3 "registers" or "modes" of normativity (Metaphysical, Phenomenal, Moral) has performed such a role since history's earliest beginnings.

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