Genius

In the Anthropology, Kant wonders whether the genius or the individual possessing perfected judgment has contributed more to the advance of culture. In the KU, Kant answers this question defi nitively on the side of those with perfected judgment. Nevertheless, occurring as it does in §50 of the KU, immediately after Kant's celebration of the genius in §49, this only raises more questions. Kant rejects the genius in favour of the individual of taste as an advancer of culture, yet under what conditions could the genius contribute? And, what threat does the genius really pose to this advance, other than that of penning simple nonsense? My essay attempts to answer these questions, using key texts and overlooked Refl exionen, all of which nest Kant's concern for the genius in the associated risks of fanaticism. I conclude that, given certain conditions, the genius can contribute in a unique manner to the advance of culture.

O Problema de Roteamento de Veículos (PRV), conhecido na literatura como Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP), foi originalmente proposto por Dantzig e Ramser (1959) e pode ser definido da seguinte forma: dado um conjunto N de clientes, cada qual com uma demanda d i e uma frota de veículos homogênea com capacidade Q, tem-se como objetivo estabelecer os trajetos de custo mínimo a serem percorridos pelos veículos, de forma a atender completamente a demanda dos clientes.

Künstler als Zunftgenossen – Beitrag zu einer Begriffsklärung von „Zunft“ am Beispiel der Goldschmiede. In: Tacke, Andreas (Hrsg.): Material Culture – Präsenz und Sichtbarkeit von Künstlern, Zünften und Bruderschaften in der Vormoderne/ Presence and Visibility of Artists, Guilds, Brotherhoods in the Premodern Era. Petersberg 2017, S. 19-31.

From 1913 to 1937 a St. Louis homemaker, Pearl Cur-ran, seemed to channel conversations and literary works from a seventeenth-century Englishwoman named Patience Worth. The communications were at first produced through the use of a Ouija board and then later through automatic speech. “Patience” displayed knowledge, sophistication, and creative capacities apparently radically different from those of Mrs. Curran. In addition to volumes of engaging and often acerbic conversation, Patience produced several novels, plays, thousands of poems, witty epigrams and pithy aphorisms, many of them of exceptional merit. Patience also displayed unprecedented improvisational, mnemonic, and creative capacities. She could improvise poems on any subject proposed to her, sometimes performing astonishing literary stunts, and her works were produced without need of revision or correction. Moreover some of her works were written in a novel archaic Anglo-Saxon dialect, and even her more modern works contained a peculiar preponderance of Anglo-Saxon root words. Because scrupulous investigation has found no person corresponding to the Patience Worth persona, it seems likely that Patience represents a set of latent creative talents unleashed dissociatively in Pearl. This achievement resembles similar accomplishments of savants and prodigies, and the case raises intriguing issues about the limits of and prerequisites for human creativity.

Antoni Gaudí – Loneliness of a Genius.
Antoni Gaudí was a Catalan architect: multi-talented, innovative, creative, considered as a genius. What does it mean to be a genius? Whether genius must be condemned to loneliness? He is a person endowed with exceptional abilities, and his way of perceiving and acting in the world goes beyond what would be considered normal, logic or acceptable. Usually, it is not easy for him to function in society, among not-so-illustrious people, where often he has a special role to play. Looking at Gaudí’s life we can see his struggles with the administration, with the clients of his projects which not always were realized and with the contractors doubting the strength of his constructions. His buildings often caused emotional reactions and criticism. They were an incentive for the press and caricaturists, just like their creator. Did Gaudí feel lonely? Or maybe the loneliness of genius is not like we comprehend or define it?

The MacArthur Fellows Program would be more effective in supporting creatives if it simply stopped giving fellowships to people with secure jobs at elite institutions; they don’t need help in order to function. This paper elaborates that argument; considers three fellows gifted in the first year; examines the problems involved in evaluating talent; and evaluates three elite schools. It concludes by looking at the careers of three certified geniuses: Louis Armstrong, John von Neumann, and Richard Feynman.

Version 7 has updates on the classes of 2014,  2015, 2016, and 2018.

Fernando Pessoa. Il libro del genio e della follia. Curatori: Giulia Lanciani. Milano: Mondadori, 2012. Grandi Biografie 2012. Attualità e reportage. ISBN 9788804621188. 480 pagine. 14,0 x 21,5 cm. Brossura con alette. In vendita dal 09 ottobre 2012.

This original encyclopedia entry gives a critical overview of Kant’s aesthetics and discusses its influence on contemporary aesthetics. Topics covered: the nature and properties of aesthetic judgment, pure and impure aesthetic judgment, beauty and sublimity, the free play of the mental faculties, aesthetics and morality, fine art, and genius.

Creativity and imagination are the most important ingredients for coping with post-normal times, according to Sardar.This paper looks at the way creativity itself is being transformed in the West, from the individualistic/atomistic view of Modernity towards a more contextual, collaborative, complex approach. It explores the potential and possibilities for this more participatory creativity to help go beyond the ‘‘crisis of the
future,’’and argues that the centrality of creativity must go beyond the mythology of genius and inspiration to inform philosophy, ethics, and action. Philosophical reflection and the imagination of desirable futures can emerge from a creative ethic that stresses the value of generative interactions and contexts that support creativity.

"Seit über 2000 Jahren beschäftigen sich die Menschen mit der Frage, was ein Genie ausmacht. Die Erklärungsversuche reichen vom göttlichen Wahnsinn Platons bis zum Originalitäts-Postulat des Sturm und Drang, und auch die Protagonisten von Thomas Manns Romanen 'Lotte in Weimar', 'Joseph und seine Brüder' und 'Doktor Faustus' stehen in dieser Tradition: Goethe, für Mann der Inbegriff des Genies, erscheint als Künstler des Fin de Siècle; der geniale Komponist Adrian Leverkühn, der sich dem Teufel verschreibt, um seine Kreativität zu steigern, wird unter Rückgriff auf die antiken Konzepte von Inspiration und Melancholie dargestellt, und in Joseph, der ‚Gestalt der Erfüllung‘ (H. Kurzke), vollzieht sich gar die Transzendierung des Genies. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht die Frage, wie Thomas Mann mit seinen Figuren die Genietradition fortschreibt und sie zugleich im Kontext der klassischen Moderne als Genies inszeniert."

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Rezensionen
1. Ruprecht Wimmer: Rezension. In: Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch 54 (2013), S. 460-465.

2. Joseph A. Kruse: Rezension, in: Germanistik. Internationales Referatenorgan mit bibliographi-schen Hinweisen 53 (2012), Heft 1-2, S. 245.

3. Bastian Schlüter: Das moderne Genie von der Einsamkeit in die humane Vergemeinschaftung, auf IASL online:
http://www.iaslonline.de/index.php?vorgang_id=3656

4. Markus Lorenz: Zwischen Sowohl und Sowohl-als-auch, literaturkritik.de:
http://www.literaturkritik.de/public/rezension.php?rez_id=16102

In this paper, I trace a line of thought from Kant to Kristeva in which ‘genius’ articulates a subject who is able to transcend a subjectivity that is limited by the determinate concepts of reason. Kristeva does not explicitly cite Kant in her reflections on genius so what I offer is an interpretive leap that attempts to link the Kantian formulation of the genius’ ability to schematize the supersensible – to traverse the realm of indeterminate concepts and aesthetic ideas – to the Kristevan formulation of female genius as the three-fold ability to relate the feminine to the masculine, the semiotic to the symbolic, and to "go beyond one’s self."  By linking these two theories of genius, I show that there is a provocative parallel between Kant’s notion of the supersensible and the psychoanalytic concepts of the unconscious.

Abstract

Within the theoretical framework of Roland Barthes’s writings on myth and ideology, this essay seeks to expose the historical legitimation project through which the mythmaking, universalizing rhetoric of musical genius that has long surrounded the figure of Ludwig van Beethoven came to infiltrate scholarship on Josquin des Prez, culminating in his late twentieth-century apotheosis. Contextualizing the composer’s reception history with respect to the debates between Joseph Kerman and Edward Lowinsky in 1965 and especially the 1971 Josquin Festival-Conference, the author suggests that the ideological refashioning of Josquin in the image of Beethoven has simultaneously shaped and derailed the intellectual trajectory of early music scholarship in the past thirty years. By privileging a discourse of musical genius in the service of which, among other concerns, the canon of works attributed to the composer is being decimated beyond historical recognition, the richness and complexity of the musical culture of which he was a vital part risks being overshadowed and obfuscated by the disproportionate amount of attention invested in his singular accomplishments. The essay advocates a resolute historicization of sixteenth-century discourses of creative endowment, a critical reassessment of the role of authentication scholarship in Josquin studies, and a renewed sensitivity to the imbrication of mythologies of musical genius in music historiographies of both the past and the present.

This article aims to contribute to the study of polymathy by introducing novel perspectives on the phenomenon and by advancing a new model that systematizes the different variables involved in its development. The article is divided into four sections. The first section involves a reflection about the nature of polymathy; the term mathema is presented as the unit that underpins the development of polymathic knowledge, and the elements that constitute the fundamental qualities of polymathy are identified and discussed. In the second section, the novel conceptualization of polymathy as a life project is introduced; it builds upon previous psychoeconomic approaches to offer a new perspective on the phenomenon. In the third section, a developmental model of polymathy is suggested; it organizes the different constructs involved in the development of polymathy into a framework that can serve as basis for future studies. Finally, implications for research, practice and policy are discussed.

David Foster Wallace was genuinely troubled by what he perceived to be a serious incongruity in the mental lives of elite athletes.  To perform with grace and beauty, elite athletes must be ‘geniuses,’ yet in conversation and prose these same athletes often exhibit such vapidity and banality that he was tempted to simply write them off as unintelligent or worse.  In response to this puzzle, Wallace developed different philosophical conceptions of the elite athlete aimed at bridging the gap between genius and dumb jock.  For Wallace, this was an exercise designed to help him live a more compassionate life

The change of “traditional” music patterns transformed forms according to the new, rational world vision of the 20th century made permanent with the signature of the composers. Especially, composition for a string instrument filtered the entire sociocultural and musical past of the collective music memory, attributing new meanings to the individual and highlighting individuality; with instrument accompanying voice in a performance earning the former a soloist position. Individuality
referred to as a desire to be distinct from others, to have a unique attitude, to express or tell something different falls within a period in which an era was dying out while a new one was yet to be born. It’s an age in which the individual starts to have a bigger say in oneself, develops their boundaries, increases their personal freedom with an assertive “Count me in” attitude, constructing more with written
text than oral expression. All of these elements help the individual self-actualize with self-governance and reflection within the potential for autonomy that is a product of one’s social environment. Music becomes a major channel of expression bearing social discourse which enables
the individual to express with something unheard of their own journey of
efforts for evolution and awareness thanks to their own talent and creative act. On the social course of modernization, music will renew itself on a different execution practice. This is a novelty in the history of musical execution as well. Tanburi Cemil Bey and Şerif Muhiddin Targan occupied a singular position public life. These two virtuosos built a micro space of music with their own skills and geniuses, maintaining a certain type of invisible aesthetical structure made of sounds independent
from time and society they belong to and in conflict with current general tastes. Creators of style and school for ancient string instruments such as tanbur, kemençe and oud from Ottoman-Turkish musical territories, these virtuosos started to give concerts beyond musical assemblies and lodges, paving the way for a change in not only composition but execution as well. Thanks to gramophone records documenting
the sounds of history, especially their improvisations and compositions; they joined their methods between the past, present and the future with sound, as it were. This paper will focus on the reasons why virtuosity elements started to be incorporated into execution technique, with sociocultural analyses in the examples of Cemil Bey and Şerif Muhiddin Targan who laid the musicological foundation of the great development of execution in the 20th century.

Jerónimo Pizarro
Fernando Pessoa: Entre Génio e Loucura.
Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 2007.

Edição Crítica das Obras de Fernando Pessoa
Coleção: Estudos, vol. III
Tema: Estudos Línguisticos e Literários
Data de Publicação: Junho de 2007
Nº Páginas: 240
ISBN: 978-972-27-1577-5

Este livro faz companhia a «Escritos sobre Génio e Loucura», de 2006 (volume VII da Edição Crítica de Fernando Pessoa). Desde que começou a manifestar interesse pelas grandes questoes do «génio» e da «loucura», Pessoa compreendeu que tanto uma como outra eram também temas literários. A abundante, mas fragmentária, produção reunida em «Escritos» mostrou a utilidade de se elaborar um retrato intelectual e artístico de Fernando Pessoa que enquadrasse e desse ordem e significado a essa produção. Se da vida do poeta sabemos pouco -- e foi Octavio Paz que disse, a propósito de Pessoa, que os poetas nao tem biografía --, da sua obra sabemos cada vez mais, e esse saber serve para complementar a biografía. O presente estudo está concebido como uma biografia intelectual, alimentada por transcrições dos papéis deixados pelo autor na sua célebre arca e também por anotações marginais que deixou nos livros que consultou sobre génio e sobre loucura.

Naukowa i filozoficzna refleksja nad sztuką dawno zakwestionowały kategorie autora, twórcy, geniuszu, czy ekspresji z tajemnych wewnętrznych głębi. Nie przetrwały one śmierci autora, intertekstualności, instytucjonalnej definicji sztuki, odkrycia dzieła otwartego, czy estetyki performatywności. Jednak kategorie te wydają się wciąż obecne w potocznych próbach rozumienia ludzkich zdolności i osiągnięć. Rozciągane są ponadto daleko poza obszar sztuki, na wszelkie właściwie sfery ludzkiej działalności -"geniuszem" może być zarówno pianista jak piłkarz.

Paper written by undergrad Noelle Tham for psychology/anthropology class at Saint Mary's College of California. Class taught by Professor Anna Corwin.

Written my freshman year and published in an undergrad magazine the following year (2020). Not quite an academic paper.

A preceding archeological excavation opened the way for the recovery of a larger building complex on Kossuth Square, Pécs. A wall-painting islet consisting of fragmented, but contigious pieces was unearthed, was a part of a larger painting decorating the northern wall of the room of the building complex in Severan times. The half man size figure surviving in bust was created with a brilliant brushwork using rich colours on a white background. The figure can be identified as Genius based on his attributes (the cornucopia and the crown) and the inscription of the painting. This paper discusses reconstruction possibilities of the wall-painting, painting techniques and materials applied, and deals with the possible functions of the room the wall-painting was unearthed in.

This paper gives a new account of Roman birthday-cult and the genius in the works of Horace. Horace’s implicit theology of genius, it argues, related the public sphere of the nascent State (itself buttressed by birthday cult) to the private sphere of his relationship to Maecenas, and to the solitary sphere of his relationship to himself. At its core, this paper solves two problems raised by his final birthday-poem, Odes IV, 11, «The Blood-Offering Problem » and «The Birthday Problem » . In revealing Horace’s identification of his births and rebirths with those of Maecenas, this paper illuminates Horace’s novel coordination of cosmos, imperium and the individual, in ways that clarify his poetry, his new political theology of empire, and the history of birthday cult.

'Genius, cannot be taught,’ Ralph Waldo Emerson reports, reiterating Socrates’s conclusion in Plato’s Meno. This article considers this claim and its significance for moral education, specifically in modern science, by focusing on Emerson’s account of genius and the virtue of self-trust that perfects it. Genius, for Emerson, does not refer only to extraordinary works or persons. It is also the creative action of the soul to be cultivated by all. Self-trust, in which all the virtues are realized, is its chief virtue. Emerson knows that virtue begins but does not end in imitation. The goal of moral education is not simply to ape the virtues of those we love and admire, but to cultivate the virtues needed to innovate on received models, to excel by pressing beyond exemplars who have gone before. Can genius, then, be taught? Emerson’s answer is not so simple as it may appear at first blush.

En 2005, Krishna Zepeda era una celebridad mediática. En periódicos y televisión era descrito como un niño genio. Un salvadoreño nacido en una humilde familia que a sus cuatro años podía leer y resolver problemas matemáticos. A siete años de eso, algunos se preguntan si El Salvador ha sabido aprovechar el talento de niños como este.