Sanity (from la, sāntā) refers to the soundness,
rationality
Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reasons. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an ab ...
, and
health
Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organ ...
of the
human mind
The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various m ...
, as opposed to
insanity
Insanity, madness, lunacy, and craziness are behaviors performed by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity can be manifest as violations of societal norms, including a person or persons becoming a danger to themselves or t ...
. A person is sane if they are
rational. In
modern society, the term has become exclusively
synonymous with ''compos mentis'' ( la, compos, having mastery of, and la, mentis, mind), in contrast with ''
non compos mentis'', or
insanity
Insanity, madness, lunacy, and craziness are behaviors performed by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity can be manifest as violations of societal norms, including a person or persons becoming a danger to themselves or t ...
, meaning troubled conscience. A sane mind is nowadays considered healthy both from its analytical - once called ''rational'' - and emotional aspects. According to the writer
G. K. Chesterton, sanity involves wholeness, whereas insanity implies narrowness and brokenness.
Psychiatry and psychology
Alfred Korzybski proposed a theory of sanity in his
general semantics. He believed sanity was tied to the logical reasoning about and comprehension of what is going on in the world. He imposed this notion in a
map-territory analogy: "A
map ''is not'' the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a 'similar structure' to the territory, which accounts for its
usefulness." Given that science continually seeks to adjust its theories structurally to fit the facts, i.e., improves its maps to fit the territory, and thus advances more rapidly than any other field, he believed that the key to understanding sanity would be found in the study of the methods of science (and the study of structure as revealed by science). The adoption of a scientific outlook and attitude of continual adjustment by the individual toward their assumptions was the way, so he claimed. In other words, there were "factors of sanity to be found in the physico-mathematical
methods of science." He also stressed that sanity requires the awareness that "whatever you say a thing is, it is not" because anything expressed through language is not the reality it refers to: language is like a map, and the map is not the territory. The territory, or reality, remains unnamable, unspeakable, and mysterious. Hence, the widespread assumption that we can grasp reality through language involves a degree of insanity.
Psychiatrist
Philip S. Graven suggested the term "un-sane" to describe a condition that is not exactly ''insane'', but not quite ''sane'' either.
In ''The Sane Society'',
published in 1955, psychologist
Erich Fromm proposed that not just individuals, but entire societies "may be lacking in sanity." Fromm argued that one of the most deceptive features of social life involves "consensual validation":
It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas or feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing is further from the truth... Just as there is a ''folie à deux
Folie à deux ('folly of two', or 'madness haredby two'), also known as shared psychosis or shared delusional disorder (SDD), is a collection of rare psychiatric syndromes in which symptoms of a delusional belief, and sometimes hallucination ...
'' there is a ''folie à millions''. The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make these people sane.
Law
In
criminal and
mental health law, sanity is a
legal term denoting that an individual is of sound mind and therefore can bear legal
responsibility for their
actions. The official legal term is ''compos mentis''. It is generally defined in terms of the
absence of insanity (''
non compos mentis''). It is not a
medical term, although the opinions of
medical experts are often important in making a legal
decision
Decision may refer to:
Law and politics
*Judgment (law), as the outcome of a legal case
*Landmark decision, the outcome of a case that sets a legal precedent
* ''Per curiam'' decision, by a court with multiple judges
Books
* ''Decision'' (novel ...
as to whether someone is sane or insane. It is also not the same concept as
mental illness
A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitt ...
. One can be acting under profound mental illness and yet be sane, and one can also be
ruled insane without an underlying mental illness.
Legal definitions of sanity have been little explored by science and medicine, as the concentration has been on illness. It remains entirely impossible to prove sanity. Furthermore, as Korzybski has pointed out repeatedly, insanity to various degrees is widespread in the general population, which includes many people that are considered mentally fit in medical and legal terms. In this connection, Erich Fromm referred to the "pathology of normalcy," while
David Cooper proposed that normality was opposed to both madness and sanity.
[D Cooper, ''The Death of the Family'' (Penguin 1971) p. 12]
For a last will and testament to be valid, the testator must have
Testamentary capacity. This is often expressed using the phrase "being of sound mind and memory".
See also
*
George Eman Vaillant
*
Insanity defense
The insanity defense, also known as the mental disorder defense, is an affirmative defense by excuse in a criminal case, arguing that the defendant is not responsible for their actions due to an episodic psychiatric disease at the time of the ...
*
Rationalism
In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy' ...
*
Sanism
*
Self-actualisation
References
{{Reflist
Mental health law
General semantics