The trouble with Cheerskep's arguments is that he seeks to define the 'if and only if' traits of high intellect and then turns to examples from his own experience and people he's met, as if these examples prove a general condition and not merely separate, accidentally relevant cases.
The whole point of making a general definition of something is to avoid relying on particular cases. (Example: All chickens have white feathers. Look, there's a chicken with white feathers. Claim proved? Of course not.) Scattered cases do not prove the argument but merely attempt to illustrate the absent proof by implication. No good enough. For every person who seems to exhibit no great intellect but still creates a great work of art, there is another who both exhibits great intellect and creates a great work of art. (And don't ignore the fact the whatever makes a great work of art, is not the author alone but societal approval and judgment). Furthermore, why does Cheerskep presume that functions of the brain can be distinguished so completely from one another as to exclude feeling and emotion from a cognitive act? That old view is as dead as an earth centered solar system. I've been babbling on about Damasio and other cutting edge neurologists for years on our forum and now their basic findings utilizing new technology, is widely known among the educated classes everywhere. The best way to measure intellect and creativity is by their products. No one can predict a great artwork; no one can promise to make a great artwork; no one can promise to demonstrate great intellect or creativity. Past evidence and various suppositions abound, of course, and lead people to make optimistic guesses but in the end, it's only by the result that we know what has been achieved. Nothing guarantees that achievement ahead of time. IQ tests and all the aptitude tests are pure speculation and have value only insofar as they influence action -- as self-fulfilling influences. I always told my students not to tell me what they planned to do or, worse, what they wanted to do, but to do something first and then we'd talk about that. Tomorrow I will go to my studio and I intend to make an artwork of real merit. But I can't promise to succeed. I can only try. Isn't it the same with a novelist or a playwright? It doesn't matter how well one did in the past or how well one might do based on past performance or how smart or dumb one is thought to be or measured to be. There's only the result followed by the messy business of valuing it. Bottom line: You can't prove a general claim with anecdotes. WC ----- Original Message ---- From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Fri, September 9, 2011 5:09:09 PM Subject: Aesthetics, intellect, high intelligence, and sensibility. I certainly could benefit from a lot more clarification, but this thought persists in my head: The fact that Van Gogh's and Godel's work primarily went on in their heads, in their brains, would not justify me in saying therefore they must both be the product of something called "intellect" and thus they must both be "the same" in any useful way. I still suspect it's more useful for us as aestheticians to look into the differences. When I see the word 'intellect', the notion that arises in my mind has much in common with my "high intelligence" notion, but the two notions tend not to be identical. Very roughly I may be able to convey it this way: My 'intellect' notion varies somewhat with the context, but the core of it is something like "the ability to think", while 'high intelligence' stirs "ability to think at a high level across a broad range range". I admit the distinction feels fuzzy, (but all notion is fuzzy to an extent), however it has its serviceability. But I also feel the brain produces elements of consciousness that don't feel like the exclusive product of intellect. An example is my "aesthetic experiences". My reactions to objects I'd call "beautiful" seem to arise from parts of the brain that have little do with cogitation, ratiocination, intellect. Put more broadly: Those reactions arise not out of logic but out of "sensibility". I do agree with William's argument that "taste/style" can be learned insofar as it's information about things that are or were approved by accepted "sophisticates". But I don't think of "taste/style" as identical to sensibility or imagination. My guess is that almost all of us on this forum have had this personal experience as children: Our very first encounter with a specimen of a genre - far earlier than we'd had any education or training in that genre - resulted in, in effect, an "aesthetic experience". A while ago I recounted on the forum something a famous dancer told me as we were publishing her autobiography. She said that before her parents took her to see a ballet, "I had no idea people did this." But with this, her initial knowledge, initial exposure to ballet, she was immediately and ecstatically transported, and knew this would be her life's devotion. I don't think that, as an adult, one can "learn" the sensibility that reacts with what I'm calling an "aesthetic experience" to certain works by Mozart, Van Gogh, Auden, Pavarotti, Shakespeare, Dickinson, etal. So it's a corollary that a person of "high intelligence" can lack "sensibility". And, to repeat, my own experience has told me that you can often simultaneously have great strengths at the first and great weaknesses at the second. I tried to describe what I called "high intelligence" as the workings of the brain that result in high scores across the range of academic disciplines, I summoned the image of a woman with a summa performance in all her academic efforts. I still maintain there seems to be no strong correlation between that broad range of "intellectual gifts" and creativity in "art". I base that judgment on extensive study of the lives of people accepted as accomplished in the "arts", and, perhaps more persuasive, I base it on my personal acquaintance with a good number of those "summa" people. My acquaintance includes, but is not limited to, people whom I have edited. I've been regularly startled by seeing a "brilliant mind" dismally obtuse about his or her shortcomings in "creative arts". One can be taught the "craft", but not the "art". And this is in part because there is nothing you can learn that will create within you sensibility. I've seen what I felt to be superb critics, editors, and scholars of "creative artists" try their hand at that kind of creation and fail by a wide margin. I will read with attention all responses to these last two postings of mine. But I confess that if I discern the responder is bent only on finding what's wrong, I'll know I can't benefit from his remarks nearly as much as from those of someone who also is able to register when something is right or interesting. This isn't because I want only approval. I'm sure I've gone wrong more than once - and I want to be told about my bungles - I continue to be almost suspiciously non-brittle. But I'm sure that not everything I've said here is wrong, and I'll know that anyone who feels it IS all wrong does not have either the intellect or sensibility - or fair-mindedness -- to be taken seriously.
