Genius

Genius

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Not to be confused with Genus. For other uses, see Genius (disambiguation).

A genius is a person who displays exceptional intellectual ability, creativity, or originality, typically to a degree that is associated with the achievement of new advances in a domain of knowledge. A scholar in many subjects or a scholar in a single subject may be referred to as a genius.[1] There is no scientifically precise definition of genius, and the question of whether the notion itself has any real meaning has long been a subject of debate, although psychologists are converging on a definition that emphasizes creativity and eminent achievement.

Etymology[edit]

Main article: Genius (mythology)

In ancient Rome, the genius (plural in Latin genii) was the guiding spirit or tutelary deity of a person, family (gens), or place (genius loci).[2] The noun is related to the Latin verbgenui, genitus, “to bring into being, create, produce”. Because the achievements of exceptional individuals seemed to indicate the presence of a particularly powerful genius, by the time ofAugustus the word began to acquire its secondary meaning of “inspiration, talent”.[3] The term genius acquired its modern sense in the eighteenth century, and is a conflation of two Latin terms: genius, as above, and ingenium, a related noun referring to our innate dispositions, talents and inborn nature.[4] Beginning to blend the concepts of the divine and the talented, theEncyclopédie article on genius (génie) describes such a person as “he whose soul is more expansive and struck by the feelings of all others; interested by all that is in nature never to receive an idea unless it evokes a feeling; everything excites him and on which nothing is lost.” [5]

Historical development[edit]

Galton[edit]

The assessment of intelligence was initiated by Francis Galton (1822–1911) and James McKeen Cattell. They had advocated the analysis of reaction time and sensory acuity as measures of “neurophysiological efficiency” and the analysis of sensory acuity as a measure of intelligence.[6]

Galton is regarded as the founder of psychometry. He studied the work of his older half-cousin Charles Darwin about biological evolution. Hypothesizing that eminence is inherited from ancestors, Galton did a study of families of eminent people in Britain, publishing it in 1869 as Hereditary Genius.[7] Galton’s ideas were elaborated from the work of two early 19th-century pioneers in statistics: Carl Friedrich Gauss and Adolphe Quetelet. Gauss discovered the normal distribution (bell-shaped curve): given a large number of measurements of the same variable under the same conditions, they vary at random from a most frequent value, the “average,” to two least frequent values at maximum differences greater and less than the most frequent value. Quetelet discovered that the bell-shaped curve applied to social statistics gathered by the French government in the course of its normal processes on large numbers of people passing through the courts and the military. His initial work in criminology led him to observe “the greater the number of individuals observed the more do peculiarities become effaced…” This ideal from which the peculiarities were effaced became “the average man”.[8]

Galton was inspired by Quetelet to define the average man as “an entire normal scheme”; that is, if one combines the normal curves of every measurable human characteristic, one will in theory perceive a syndrome straddled by “the average man” and flanked by persons that are different. In contrast to Quetelet, Galton’s average man was not statistical, but was theoretical only. There was no measure of general averageness, only a large number of very specific averages. Setting out to discover a general measure of the average, Galton looked at educational statistics and found bell-curves in test results of all sorts; initially in mathematics grades for the final honors examination and in entrance examination scores for Sandhurst.

Galton’s method in Hereditary Genius was to count and assess the eminent relatives of eminent men. He found that the number of eminent relatives was greater with closer degree of kinship. This work is considered the first example of historiometry, an analytical study of historical human progress. The work is controversial and has been criticised for several reasons. Galton then departed from Gauss in a way that became crucial to the history of the 20th century AD. The bell-shaped curve was not random, he concluded. The differences between the average and the upper end were due to a non-random factor, “natural ability,” which he defined as “those qualities of intellect and disposition, which urge and qualify men to perform acts that lead to reputation … a nature which, when left to itself, will, urged by an inherent stimulus, climb the path that leads to eminence.”[9] The apparent randomness of the scores was due to the randomness of this natural ability in the population as a whole, in theory.

Criticisms include that Galton’s study fails to account for the impact of social status and the associated availability of resources in the form of economic inheritance, meaning that inherited “eminence” or “genius” can be gained through the enriched environment provided by wealthy families. Galton went on to develop the field of eugenics.[10]

Psychology[edit]

Genius is expressed in a variety of forms (e.g., mathematical, literary, musical performance). Persons with genius tend to have strong intuitions about their domains, and they build on these insights with tremendous energy. Carl Rogers, a founder of the Humanistic Approach to Psychology, expands on the idea of a genius trusting his or her intuition in a given field, writing: “El Greco, for example, must have realized as he looked at some of his early work, that ‘good artists do not paint like that.’ But somehow he trusted his own experiencing of life, the process of himself, sufficiently that he could go on expressing his own unique perceptions. It was as though he could say, ‘Good artists don’t paint like this, but I paint like this.’ Or to move to another field, Ernest Hemingway was surely aware that “good writers do not write like this.” But fortunately he moved toward being Hemingway, being himself, rather than toward someone else’s conception of a good writer.”[11]

A number of people commonly regarded as geniuses have been diagnosed with mental disorders, for example Vincent van Gogh,[12]Virginia Woolf, [13]Jonathan Swift,[14]John Forbes Nash, Jr,[15] and Ernest Hemingway.[16]

IQ and genius[edit]

Main article: IQ classification

Galton was a pioneer in investigating both eminent human achievement and mental testing. In his book Hereditary Genius, written before the development of IQ testing, he proposed that hereditary influences on eminent achievement are strong, and that eminence is rare in the general population. Lewis Terman chose “‘near’ genius or genius” as the classification label for the highest classification on his 1916 version of the Stanford-Binet test.[17] By 1926, Terman began publishing about a longitudinal study of California schoolchildren who were referred for IQ testing by their schoolteachers, called Genetic Studies of Genius, which he conducted for the rest of his life. Catherine M. Cox, a colleague of Terman’s, wrote a whole book, The Early Mental Traits of 300 Geniuses,[1] published as volume 2 of The Genetic Studies of Genius book series, in which she analyzed biographical data about historic geniuses. Although her estimates of childhood IQ scores of historical figures who never took IQ tests have been criticized on methodological grounds,[18][19][20] Cox’s study was thorough in finding out what else matters besides IQ in becoming a genius.[21] By the 1937 second revision of the Stanford-Binet test, Terman no longer used the term “genius” as an IQ classification, nor has any subsequent IQ test.[22][23] In 1939, David Wechsler specifically commented that “we are rather hesitant about calling a person a genius on the basis of a single intelligence test score”.[24]

The Terman longitudinal study in California eventually provided historical evidence regarding how genius is related to IQ scores.[25] Many California pupils were recommended for the study by schoolteachers. Two pupils who were tested but rejected for inclusion in the study (because their IQ scores were too low) grew up to be Nobel Prize winners in physics, William Shockley,[26][27] and Luis Walter Alvarez.[28][29] Based on the historical findings of the Terman study and on biographical examples such as Richard Feynman, who had an IQ of 125 and went on to win the Nobel Prize in physics and become widely known as a genius,[30][31] the current view of psychologists and other scholars of genius is that a minimum level of IQ (approximately 125) is necessary for genius but not sufficient, and must be combined with personality characteristics such as drive and persistence, plus the necessary opportunities for talent development.[32][33][34]

Philosophy[edit]

Leonardo da Vinci is widely acknowledged as having been a genius and apolymath.

Various philosophers have proposed definitions of what genius is and what that implies in the context of their philosophical theories.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, prodigy and musicgenius

In the philosophy of David Hume, the way society perceives genius is similar to the way society perceives the ignorant. Hume states that a person with the characteristics of a genius is looked at as a person disconnected from society, as well as a person who works remotely, at a distance, away from the rest of the world. “On the other hand, the mere ignorant is still more despised; nor is any thing deemed a surer sign of an illiberal genius in an age and nation where the sciences flourish, than to be entirely destitute of all relish for those noble entertainments. The most perfect character is supposed to lie between those extremes; retaining an equal ability and taste for books, company, and business; preserving in conversation that discernment and delicacy which arise from polite letters; and in business, that probity and accuracy which are the natural result of a just philosophy.”[35]

In the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, genius is the ability to independently arrive at and understand concepts that would normally have to be taught by another person. For Kant, originality was the essential character of genius.[36] This genius is a talent for producing ideas which can be described as non-imitative. Kant’s discussion of the characteristics of genius is largely contained within the Critique of Judgement and was well received by the Romantics of the early 19th century. In addition, much of Schopenhauer’s theory of genius, particularly regarding talent and freedom from constraint, is directly derived from paragraphs of Part I of Kant’s Critique of Judgment.[37]

Genius is a talent for producing something for which no determinate rule can be given, not a predisposition consisting of a skill for something that can be learned by following some rule or other.

— Immanuel Kant

In the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, a genius is someone in whom intellect predominates over “will” much more than within the average person. InSchopenhauer’s aesthetics, this predominance of the intellect over the will allows the genius to create artistic or academic works that are objects of pure, disinterested contemplation, the chief criterion of the aesthetic experience for Schopenhauer. Their remoteness from mundane concerns means that Schopenhauer’s geniuses often display maladaptive traits in more mundane concerns; in Schopenhauer’s words, they fall into the mire while gazing at the stars, an allusion to Plato’s dialogue Theætetus, in which Socrates tells of Thales (the first philosopher) being ridiculed for falling in such circumstances. As he says in Volume 2 of The World as Will and Representation:

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

— Arthur Schopenhauer[38]

In the philosophy of Bertrand Russell, genius entails that an individual possesses unique qualities and talents that make the genius especially valuable to the society in which he or she operates. However, Russell’s philosophy further maintains that it’s possible for such a genius to be crushed by an unsympathetic environment during his or her youth. Russell rejected the notion he believed was popular during his lifetime that, “genius will out.”[39]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Jump up to:a b Cox, Catherine M. (1926). The Early Mental Traits of 300 Geniuses. Genetic Studies of Genius Volume 2. Stanford (CA): Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-0010-9. LCCN 25008797. OCLC 248811346. Lay summary (2 June 2013).
  2. Jump up^ genius. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved May 17, 2008, from Dictionary.com website:http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/genius
  3. Jump up^ Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982, 1985 reprinting), entries on genius, p. 759, and gigno, p. 764.
  4. Jump up^ Shaw, Tamsin (2014). “Wonder Boys?”. The New York Review of Books 61 (15). Retrieved 5 October 2014.
  5. Jump up^ Saint-Lambert, Jean-François de (ascribed). “Genius.” The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d’Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by John S.D. Glaus Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2007. Web. 1 Apr. 2015. <http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0000.819>. Trans. of “Génie,” Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 7. Paris, 1757.
  6. Jump up^ Fancher, Raymond E (1998). Kimble, Gregory A; Wertheimer, Michael, eds. Alfred Binet, General Psychologist. Portraits of Pioneers in Psychology III. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. pp. 67–84.ISBN 978-1-55798-479-1.
  7. Jump up^ Galton, Francis (1869). Hereditary Genius. London: MacMillan. Retrieved 4 April 2014. Lay summary (4 April 2014).
  8. Jump up^ Bernstein, Peter L. (1998). Against the gods. Wiley. p. 160. ISBN 0-471-12104-5.
  9. Jump up^ Bernstein (1998), page 163.
  10. Jump up^ Gillham, Nicholas W. (2001). “Sir Francis Galton and the birth of eugenics”. Annual Review of Genetics 35 (1): 83–101. doi:10.1146/annurev.genet.35.102401.090055.PMID 11700278.
  11. Jump up^ Rogers, Carl (1995). On Becoming a Person. Houghton Mifflin. p. 175. ISBN 0-395-75531-X.
  12. Jump up^ Van Gogh’s Mental and Physical Health
  13. Jump up^ [1]
  14. Jump up^ Jonathan Swift
  15. Jump up^ John F. Nash Jr. – Biographical
  16. Jump up^ Ernest Hemingway
  17. Jump up^ Terman 1916, p. 79
  18. Jump up^ Pintner 1931, pp. 356–357 “From a study of these boyhood records, estimates of the probable I.Q.s of these men in childhood have been made. . . . It is of course obvious that much error may creep into an experiment of this sort, and the I.Q. assigned to any one individual is merely a rough estimate, depending to some extent upon how much information about his boyhood years has come down to us.”
  19. Jump up^ Shurkin 1992, pp. 70–71 “She, of course, was not measuring IQ; she was measuring the length of biographies in a book. Generally, the more information, the higher the IQ. Subjects were dragged down if there was little information about their early lives.”
  20. Jump up^ Eysenck 1998, p. 126 “Cox found that the more was known about a person’s youthful accomplishments, that is, what he had done before he was engaged in doing the things that made him known as a genius, the higher was his IQ. . . . So she proceeded to make a statistical correction in each case for lack of knowledge; this bumped up the figure considerably for the geniuses about whom little was in fact known. . . . I am rather doubtful about the justification for making the correction. To do so assumes that the geniuses about whom least is known were precocious but their previous activities were not recorded. This may be true, but it is also possible to argue that perhaps there was nothing much to record! I feel uneasy about making such assumptions; doing so may be very misleading.”
  21. Jump up^ Cox 1926, pp. 215–219, 218 (Chapter XIII: Conclusions) “3. That all equally intelligent children do not as adults achieve equal eminence is in part accounted for by our last conclusion: youths who achieve eminence are characterized not only by high intellectual traits, but also by persistence of motive and effort, confidence in their abilities, and great strength or force of character.” (emphasis in original)
  22. Jump up^ Terman & Merrill 1960, p. 18
  23. Jump up^ Kaufman 2009, p. 117 “Terman (1916), as I indicated, used near genius or genius for IQs above 140, but mostlyvery superior has been the label of choice” (emphasis in original)
  24. Jump up^ Wechsler 1939, p. 45
  25. Jump up^ Eysenck 1998, pp. 127–128 “Terman, who originated those “Genetics Studies of Genius,” as he called them, selected . . . children on the basis of their high IQs; the mean was 151 for both sexes. Seventy–seven who were tested with the newly translated and standardized Binet test had IQs of 170 or higher–well at or above the level of Cox’s geniuses. What happened to these potential geniuses–did they revolutionize society? . . . The answer in brief is that they did very well in terms of achievement, but none reached the Nobel Prize level, let alone that of genius. . . . It seems clear that these data powerfully confirm the suspicion that intelligence is not a sufficient trait for truly creative achievement of the highest grade.”
  26. Jump up^ Simonton 1999, p. 4 “When Terman first used the IQ test to select a sample of child geniuses, he unknowingly excluded a special child whose IQ did not make the grade. Yet a few decades later that talent received the Nobel Prize in physics: William Shockley, the cocreator of the transistor. Ironically, not one of the more than 1,500 children who qualified according to his IQ criterion received so high an honor as adults.”
  27. Jump up^ Shurkin 2006, p. 13; see also “The Truth About the ‘Termites’” (Kaufman, S. B. 2009)
  28. Jump up^ Leslie 2000, “We also know that two children who were tested but didn’t make the cut — William Shockley and Luis Alvarez — went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics. According to Hastorf, none of the Terman kids ever won a Nobel or Pulitzer.“
  29. Jump up^ Park, Lubinski & Benbow 2010, “There were two young boys, Luis Alvarez and William Shockley, who were among the many who took Terman’s tests but missed the cutoff score. Despite their exclusion from a study of young ‘geniuses,’ both went on to study physics, earn PhDs, and win the Nobel prize.“
  30. Jump up^ Gleick 2011, p. 32 “Still, his score on the school IQ test was a merely respectable 125.”
  31. Jump up^ Robinson 2011, p. 47 “After all, the American physicist Richard Feynman is generally considered an almost archetypal late 20th-century genius, not just in the United States but wherever physics is studied. Yet, Feynman’s school-measured IQ, reported by him as 125, was not especially high”
  32. Jump up^ Jensen 1998, p. 577 “Creativity and genius are unrelated to g except that a person’s level of g acts as a threshold variable below which socially significant forms of creativity are highly improbable. This g threshold is probably at least one standard deviation above the mean level of g in the general population. Besides the traits that Galton thought necessary for “eminence” (viz., high ability, zeal, and persistence), genius implies outstanding creativity as well. Though such exceptional creativity is conspicuously lacking in the vast majority of people who have a high IQ, it is probably impossible to find any creative geniuses with low IQs. In other words, high ability is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the emergence of socially significant creativity. Genius itself should not be confused with merely high IQ, which is what we generally mean by the term ‘gifted'” (emphasis in original)
  33. Jump up^ Eysenck 1998, p. 127 “What is obvious is that geniuses have a high degree of intelligence, but not outrageously high—there are many accounts of people in the population with IQs as high who have not achieved anything like the status of genius. Indeed, they may have achieved very little; there are large numbers of Mensa members who are elected on the basis of an IQ test, but whose creative achievements are nil. High achievement seems to be a necessary qualification for high creativity, but it does not seem to be a sufficientone.” (emphasis in original)
  34. Jump up^ Cf. Pickover 1998, p. 224 (quoting Syed Jan Abas) “High IQ is not genius. A person with a high IQ may or may not be a genius. A genius may or may not have a high IQ.”
  35. Jump up^ Hume, David. “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. — “Of the different Species of Philosophy””. NEW YORK: BARTLEBY.COM, 2001. Archived from the original on 2 September 2012. Retrieved 2 September 2012.
  36. Jump up^ Howard Caygill, Kant Dictionary (ISBN 0-631-17535-0).
  37. Jump up^ Kant, Immanuel (1790). Kritik der Urteilskraft [The Critique of Judgment]. pp. §46–§49. e.g. §46: “Genius is a talent for producing something for which no determinate rule can be given, not a predisposition consisting of a skill for something that can be learned by following some rule or other.” (trans. W.S. Pluhar)
  38. Jump up^ quoted in Allan, George (2012). “Learning to reason”.Modes of Learning: Whitehead’s Metaphysics and the Stages of Education. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. p. 98. ISBN 978-1-4384-4187-0.
  39. Jump up^ (Page 91, The Conquest of Happiness, ISBN 0-415-37847-8)

Bibliography[edit]

Further reading[edit]

Sources listed in chronological order of publication within each category.

Books[edit]

Review articles[edit]

Encyclopedia entries[edit]

  • Feldman, David Henry (2009). “Genius”. In Kerr, Barbara. Encyclopedia of Giftedness, Creativity, and Talent 2. Thousand Oaks (CA): SAGE. ISBN 978-141294971-2.

External links[edit]

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