Genius

Turns out, according to this article in wikipedia, that genius is a philosophical concept!

Well, I have been thinking about geniuses for a long time without actually calling it philosophy. Here's the article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genius#Philosophy


And here's a surprise (for me) nugget from Kant from the article:


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. In the Kant Dictionary (ISBN 0-631-17535-0), Howard Caygill talks of the essential character of "genius" for Kant being originality. 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.