• Bartricks
    6k
    If you think you're a great artist, or a great thinker, then chances are, of course, that you are not.

    Nevertheless, you almost certainly have to believe you are a great artist or great thinker actually to be one. This is for two reasons.

    First, if you're a great artist, then you know what a great art work looks like. But then you'd recognize that your own works have the quality in question. And similarly, if you're a great thinker, then you know what great thinking looks like, and you'd recognize that your own has that quality. To fail to recognize great art and great thinking seem like failures that are inconsistent with - or at least in very serious tension with - being a producer of such things (for then one would be producing them arbitrarily - which seems inconsistent with being great, as then you'd just be lucky).

    Second, we do not typically do things we think we're going to fail at. Indeed, that might even by psychologically impossible. You're surely not really trying to do something unless you believe you'll succeed. Yet to produce great art or great thoughts you obviously have to produce something that is original and goes beyond where other great people have taken things. You don't do that by luck (and if one did, we would not consider the person who did it to be great, but rather to be very lucky). You do it by effort. By trying to do it. So, great artists and great thinkers are trying to be great. To be a great thinker you have to think, then, that you will succeed in going beyond where other great thinkers have taken things. If you didn't think you were capable of doing that, you'd not even try - and if you don't even try to be great, you're not going to be great. Thus, a great thinker will think they are a great thinker, for they will be confident that they can have great thoughts. That's step one of having any.

    So, if you think you're not a great thinker then guess what - you're not. But if you think you are a great thinker then, though the odds are against it, there's a tiny possibility that you are. Likewise if you think you're a great artist.

    But given that the odds that you're a great artist or great thinker are so vanishingly small, surely you are not justified in believing you're a great thinker? You'd surely be being epistemically irresponsible in believing yourself great, especially given that you're unlikely to be receiving much confirmation from others (it's very hard for the mediocre to recognize greatness - great thinking will seem very peculiar to someone who thinks in a mediocre way and the odds are very high that they will deem it a kind of stupidity. LIkewise for great art. It was no accident that someone like Van Gogh was only thought to be great by other great artists and those with extremely sophisticated tastes....everyone else thought his art was utter rubbish. And similarly, Hume was not recognized to be a great thinker by his contemporaries, but only by later great thinkers such as Reid).

    So a great artist or great thinker seems inevitably to be guilty of epistemic irresponsibility, at least when it comes to their own abilities. They will believe themselves great long before anyone else does, and they will have believed themselves to be on the basis of no publicly verified evidence. They will produce art works that will be thought either to be rubbish, or at least not to be positively great, by most others, or they will produce thinking that will be thought silly or nonsense by most others. Yet despite this they will believe themselves to be great.

    I do not believe the great are guilty of an epistemic vice, however. I think the great 'know' that they are great, rather than unjustifiably believe it. And I think this is the case despite the fact others will think they are not great and that the great thinker or artist will probably be aware that most people do not share their own assessment of their own abilities.

    First, if you believe something to be true that everyone else believes to be false - and that everyone else is justified in believing to be false, too - are you epistemically irresponsible for believing it?

    No, not necessarily. Here's an example (not mine - don't know whose it is, but it isn't mine). Imagine your plane has crashed into the ocean and you have washed up on an unknown island. You know that rescue missions will have been launched to find you and your plane. And as you have now been on the island for months, you know by now that everyone else will now believe you are dead. Furthermore, it is clear that others are perfectly justified in believing this. Indeed, it'd be epistemically irresponsible of them not to believe it. Your plane crashed into the ocean and there's been no evidence of your survival for months - it is beyond a reasonable doubt that you're dead.

    But you're not. And you know you're not. It'd be quite absurd, would it not, for you to conclude that you might actually be dead on the grounds that everyone else believes - and believes justifiably - that you're dead? Yes, of course.

    So, you know you're alive, even though everyone else is justified in believing you're dead (and you know this too). You're in no way being epistemically irresponsible in believing yourself to be alive.

    Of course, in this case you have access to some evidence of your continued existence here that others do not possess. You are having your experiences. And so you can reliably infer your continued existence from those. But others can't, as they're not having them.

    But this applies to the great artist and great thinker. Everyone else thinks the great thinker is not a great thinker. And they're probably justified in thinking this. They've considered what the great thinker thinks, and to the best of their judgement, it seems to them that the thoughts the great thinker is having are not that great at all - indeed, a lot of them don't really make much sense to them. So, in light of that, they are justified in believing the great thinker to be something else - a mediocre thinker or even a bad thinker. And the great thinker will be aware of this; aware that others think they're not a great thinker, and aware that they're probably justified in that assessment.

    But the great thinker or artist has access to some evidence that others do not have access to. They are discerning, correctly, their own greatness. Others do not have access to this evidence, or at least most don't, for you'd need to be great or somewhere close to have such powers of discernment. But great people do have such powers, for it is by exercising them that they produce great art and great thoughts. And thus the great thinker and the great artist are not being epistemically irresponsible in believing themselves to be great. They are in relevant respects like the person on the island who knows he's alive, even though everyone else is justified in believing him to be dead.

    I conclude, then, that great people 'know' that they are great and will typically know it a long time before anyone else does.
  • Vera Mont
    4.2k
    What is "great"?
  • Bartricks
    6k
    Well, not that reply for one thing.
  • Vera Mont
    4.2k
    That you consider that request for a definition "not great".
  • Bartricks
    6k
    You agree that it was not great?

    Note too that I was not asking you what was okay, but what the concept of okayness is the concept of.
  • javi2541997
    5.6k
    I disagree.

    "Great" people don't know they are extraordinary. Never. When you want to do different things from the ordinary, there are a lot of chances to suffer criticism. This is what happened to Van Gogh or James Joyce. A good example of masters in literature and arts. Their works are magnificent but with the eyes of modern generations. Van Gogh was poor because nobody really bought any of his paints and James Joyce was not well understood by the literature critics.
    So, to become "great" needs a lot of facts than just thinking I am good. You (we) need the approval from the rest of the people.

    Secondly: I don't know if an artist makes his stuff just to show he is good or "great". For example: I took part in short story contest of this forum. When I finished my story in my computer I didn't think: "this is supreme". I was just proud of myself because I was able to conjugate words and make an original story. I was happy. Nevertheless, I was pessimistic towards the opinions from the members. I thought they would not like it or I would receive negative comments. It ended good and I received good feedback but I wasn't my intention.

    We can make a test about this topic. I going to share my short story with you: Wake up, newborns! and I am opened to your comments and criticism. I am not hoping my story is "great" indeed...
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    There are people who need approval to recognize their own worth, and there are people who do not need that. This is a given personality trait, which you can't change. It's as innate as height or the colour of your eyes. Of course most people tend to be somewhere in-between on the spectrum between these two extremes.
  • javi2541997
    5.6k
    and there are people who do not need that.god must be atheist

    Well, these kind of artists make the art to themselves, then. I see your point and I am somehow agree, but I don't understand the cause of writing a book or painting a landscape if no one ever would read or see them.
    It would be a sorrow for these works to never been shown to anyone ever...
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    And there are an untold number of artists and writers who burn their work before they die.

    You don't hear of them, you don't see their works, but they are out there.
  • javi2541997
    5.6k
    And there are an untold number of artists and writers who burn their work before they die.

    You don't hear of them, you don't see their works, but they are out there.
    god must be atheist

    Yes, I know. But I still see it as a waste of time. What is the clue of writing a poem if I will burn it down? I would understand it if you vanish the works because you don't like them.
    I mean: every artist feels attached to their own works. If they burn them, they are vanishing with them too.

    Franz Kaffka.god must be atheist

    We are lucky this amazing writer never destroyed his works!
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    We are lucky this amazing writer never destroyed his works!javi2541997

    He had fully intended to.

    But I still see it as a waste of time. What is the clue of writing a poem if I will burn it down? I would understand it if you vanish the works because you don't like them.javi2541997

    Waste of time? No. The creative process is fun, and at times therapeutical.

    Why destroy the works if they are great?
    1. The world is not deserving of them.
    2. I (the artist) have had my fun, and I'm selfish in not sharing the joy of admiring my pictures / words.
    3. I am the greatest, the works I produced have been the greatest, but still... not great enough for me. (Most great people get great because they have a healthy measure of self-criticism, which they use to improve themselves, instead using it to stifle their own creative processes.)
    4. They are political and I don't want my family tortured to death. (Think: Salmon Rashdi.)
    5. They are controversial; I don't want the posterity to think of me as an asshole.
    6. They are pornographic; I don't want my grandchildren to think of me as a perv.
    7. They are revealing of family secrets. I don't want my wife, who loves me dearly, to dance on my grave and piss on my headstone.
    ETC.
  • javi2541997
    5.6k
    Why destroy the works if they are great?
    1. The world is not deserving of them.
    god must be atheist

    Why I am not deserve to see your works? Am I worse than you?
    Who are we to judge the world doesn't deserve our works and art?

    Waste of time? No. The creative process is fun, and at times therapeutical.god must be atheist

    It is fun and therapeutical, that's true. But the creative process needs a conclusion. Like a perfect circle where you start in a point and then you end up in the same but with recognition. I cannot conclude and close the circle if I burn or destroy my works. In most of the cases, artists tend to represent a expression of themselves and the society in their works. Thanks to their talent we can see "reality" with other eyes.
    In the other hand: I bet that the artist who burns their works would end up regretting such action.
  • Philosophim
    2.6k

    Interesting thought. I believe that great people do not necessarily know they are great, they are driven to become great. Studies have shown time after time that genius is not a gift without copious amounts of practice and work. The greats typically continue to improve their craft through their lifetimes and do not take what they have for granted.

    In fact, a poison pill for a person's continued elevated status is to allow the accolades and successes one has obtained to go to their head. When one is "great", then one does not have to continue to work hard. This of course leads to the erosion of one's skills. Further, people are great because of those they surround themselves with as well. It is the rare myth of the lone genius who triumphs over all. Most people are able to become what they are because of the people they surround themselves with. If you "know" you're great, cockiness and arrogance can set in, driving away the people who helped make you a success to begin with.

    To be truly great is a lifelong pursuit that requires humbleness. Humbleness is the accurate recognition of your capabilities without hubris. Humbleness is an awareness of your weaknesses so you can continue to improve. Other people appreciate those who are humble, and want to continue to support them in their continued growth.

    So, if you think you're not a great thinker then guess what - you're not. But if you think you are a great thinker then, though the odds are against it, there's a tiny possibility that you are.Bartricks

    To address this then, if you think you aren't a great thinker, but you want to be, then you can become a great thinker. An inaccurate assessment of yourself is the hallmark of a poor thinker. Someone who realizes they aren't that great but wants to be, has the makings of a great thinker.

    Everyone else thinks the great thinker is not a great thinker.Bartricks

    I would say this is incorrect. Barring a minority of people, great thinkers are often appreciated. A person who has a few good thoughts but cannot communicate them in a way that the majority of people would appreciate has a lot of improvement to do.

    But the great thinker or artist has access to some evidence that others do not have access to. They are discerning, correctly, their own greatness.Bartricks

    In some cases this is correct. But if one is such a great thinker, they should be able to explain it to others in a way that most people will understand. If they can't, then they have a lot of improvement to do before they can be considered great thinkers. Anybody can create an idea that is understood by themselves to be great. That's what society tests. If you can't convince anyone else, its not that you're a special kind of genius that no one else can understand. Its that you are incapable of communicating your idea in a clear and convincing manner.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    Why I am not deserve to see your works? Am I worse than you?
    Who are we to judge the world doesn't deserve our works and art?
    javi2541997

    Ayyayyayy. You can't place a guilt trip on an artist who is placing a guilt trip on you.

    In other words, please allow people their individuality, and individual judgment without judging them.

    Or you can judge them, too, but unless you appeal to a higher authority, your judgment on them will be as impotent as their judgment on you. Except you still won't enjoy their art, which makes the match 0:1 on their favour.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    But the creative process needs a conclusion.javi2541997

    No, it does not. Where did you get that? Leonardo da Vinci, one of the most prolific creators of all times, had been criticised by Michelangelo for not completing his works.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    In most of the cases, artists tend to represent a expression of themselves and the society in their works. Thanks to their talent we can see "reality" with other eyes.
    In the other hand: I bet that the artist who burns their works would end up regretting such action.
    javi2541997

    "In most cases..." yes, but there are the exceptions, if the cases you talk about are "most", and not "all".

    I don't know... you seem to attribute a lot of your own values on a lot of people, without any actual reason but your own bias.

    People are diverse. You can't make everyone comply to your values. And why should they? Because you don't see their point? Well, it's more of a report card on your inflexibility than a report card on reality.
  • javi2541997
    5.6k
    In other words, please allow people their individuality, and individual judgment without judging them.god must be atheist

    It is not necessary to see "judgement" as a negative mark. We are even using the incorrect word here. I am thinking of recognition rather than judgement. I will always respect the artist's indidualism. Most of the artists are independent and individualistic. I just want to recognise their works. Why not?

    No, it does not. Where did you get that? Leonardo da Vinci, one of the most prolific creators of all times, had been criticised by Michelangelo for not completing his works.god must be atheist

    I am not referring to the works but the author.

    People are diverse. You can't make everyone comply to your values. And why should they? Because you don't see their point?god must be atheist

    I see their point but I don't understand it. Simple. I guess the only who is inflexible here is you
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    It is not necessary to see "judgement" as a negative mark.javi2541997

    You're right. I felt funny using that word. Judment carries too much notion of "condemnation". Whereas I meant it as a form of opinionating.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    I am not referring to the works but the author.javi2541997

    Well... the author creates the works. How can you seperate "author who never finishes his works" from the author? It is incredibly about the author. Not the works. Sorry.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    I see their point but I don't understand it. Simple. I guess the only who is inflexible here is youjavi2541997

    Sorry. Yes, I guess I am inflexible because I can get out of my mind and am capable of understanding more diverse behaviour patterns. You, on the other hand, are more flexible, because you can't imagine how some behaviour patterns are possible, due to the fact that you can't understand them.
  • javi2541997
    5.6k
    Well... the author creates the works. How can you seperate "author who never finishes his works" from the author?god must be atheist

    It is not possible at all, that's true (or at least, very difficult). But I am not referring (for example) of finishing a novel of 250 pages. That's not the type of "ending" I am thinking of. I am talking about recognition. If someone burns all their works he will never get recognition at all, so the circle will not be closed.

    Well, at least that's how I see it...
  • javi2541997
    5.6k
    Sorry. Yes, I guess I am inflexible because I can get out of my mind and am capable of understanding more diverse behaviour patterns. You, on the other hand, are more flexible, because you can't imagine how some behaviour patterns are possible, due to the fact that you can't understand them.god must be atheist

    ... you are using sarcasm, right?
  • T Clark
    13.6k
    "Great" people don't know they are extraordinary. Never. When you want to do different things from the ordinary, there are a lot of chances to suffer criticism. This is what happened to Van Gogh or James Joyce. A good example of masters in literature and arts. Their works are magnificent but with the eyes of modern generations. Van Gogh was poor because nobody really bought any of his paints and James Joyce was not well understood by the literature critics.

    So, to become "great" needs a lot of facts than just thinking I am good. You (we) need the approval from the rest of the people.
    javi2541997

    Yes. Exactly.

    YGID%20small.png
  • Bartricks
    6k
    "Great" people don't know they are extraordinary. Never.javi2541997

    You make no case. Note: I made a case. You haven't addressed it. All you've done is express a view - one that is clearly false, as any knowledge of the lives of great artists and thinkers would tell you. But anyway, this is a philosophy forum, so you need to engage with the argument I made, not just express your unsupported view.

    This is what happened to Van Gogh or James Joyce. A good example of masters in literature and arts. Their works are magnificent but with the eyes of modern generations. Van Gogh was poor because nobody really bought any of his paints and James Joyce was not well understood by the literature critics.javi2541997

    Again, you have not engaged with my argument and you also show your ignorance of the facts. Van Gogh did not paint for a hobby, rather he was a driven man who was (despite episodes of doubt - he was subject to extreme mood swings) convinced he was engaged in important work. He is famous in part for only having officially sold one painting in his own lifetime. What they don't mention is that he and his brother made no great effort to sell them and they charged a fortune for them, as they were playing a long game and didn't want to damage the brand by selling them cheap (he only sold one painting, but he sold it for a hell of a lot of money! 400 francs, to be precise. That's in the region of $10,000. (If you're wondering why anyone would give such a large sum for the work of an unknown artist painting in a very unusual style, it is because it was bought by the wealthy sister of a friend - Elizabeth Boch, sister of his friend Eugene - and so it was, in fact, a disguised donation. The important point is that 400 francs is the price he put on the work). He only sold one painting because his prices were ludicrously high - because he knew what he was producing was high quality work (he would give work away, but he wouldn't sell it cheap).

    So, to become "great" needs a lot of facts than just thinking I am good. You (we) need the approval from the rest of the people.javi2541997

    Er, again, you haven't engaged with my argument and you seem utterly ignorant of the facts. Once more: Van Gogh. He did not receive approval from the people and nor did he need it. And lots of the great philosophers were not recognized, or not properly recognized to be great, in their own lifetimes. Descartes was in no doubt about his own brilliance and was frustrated that he wasn't being lauded as much as he thought he ought to be; Hume was almost entirely ignored - at least as a philospher - in his own lifetime, and Berkeley too was not considered to be great, a fact that bothered him....because he knew his ideas were very important.

    Again, I offered an explanation: if you don't think you're great, you won't try and do great things. And so you won't do great things. You need to think you're capable of doing great things to try and do them. You need to think you're great in order to deal with the fact that you're not going to be properly appreciated by those around you (unless they're as great, or nearly as great, as you are). Note, even those who are appreciated in their own lifetime are typically not fully appreciated in it and it often takes time - sometimes centuries - for the true value of their contributions to be recognized.
  • javi2541997
    5.6k
    if you don't think you're great, you won't try and do great things. And so you won't do great things. You need to think you're capable of doing great things to try and do them.Bartricks

    Or I just want to do great things because I want to, without the aim of being considered by the rest of the people. Maybe I just paint a portrait because I want to express myself not caring about being great

    Furthermore, you started this post about recognising greatness, but you didn't provide a definition of great. Your arguments are based on a positive attitude towards our goals. Before to acknowledge that, we have to reflect on greatness. What do you consider as greatness? Because we all have different points of view and we shall not share the same view on greatness.
  • Joshs
    5.6k
    I conclude, then, that great people 'know' that they are great and will typically know it a long time before anyone else does.Bartricks

    What they know is that they have found their way into a territory of thinking-creativity that seems to be virgin ground. As far as they know they are the first to arrive there. Their motivation for pursing their work is that they believe it to be true/valuable ( not just for them) and if they don’t produce it they will not be able to find it anywhere else. To the extent that they consider what they do ‘great’ it is not because of the intrinsic content of the work, which they may very well consider to be obvious or even ‘commonsensical’, but because of the failure of others to produce similar content. When probed, they may confess that it didn’t seem to them to be a matter of their specialness so much as a certain relative stupidity on the part of their contemporaries. So only by comparison could they consider themselves ‘great’.

    If i write a philosophical treatise that at first appears the only one of its kind, I may feel ‘great’ for a while, that is, until l discover an entire community of philosophers , previously unknown to me, that has been producing almost identical content to mine. Nothing has changed about my work except my knowledge that it is not unique. Greatness is just this experience of the apparent distance separating one’s valid ideas from others.

    If Kant or Van Gogh were to appear for the fist time today they would not likely be considered ( or consider themselves ) great because their creative content is now commonplace.
  • Bartricks
    6k
    Or I just want to do great things because I want to, without the aim of being considered by the rest of the people.javi2541997

    I didn't say otherwise. The point, though, is that you need to think you're capable of doing great things in order to try to do them. And you need to try to do them if you're ever going actually to do them.

    Thus, great thinkers and artists think they're great (and because they will them themselves great on the basis of having discerned themselves to be, they will also 'know' that they are great - that is, their belief will not be unjustified.
  • Bartricks
    6k
    Furthermore, you started this post about recognising greatness, but you didn't provide a definition of great.javi2541997

    You don't need a definition of great. They - the great - discern their own greatness. You, like so many, seem to think that understanding and awareness comes from having definitions. If that were true we could solve all philosophical problems by use of the dictionary.
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