Philosophy Now Forum

I was listening to this program about madness and art and they mentioned that plato and others a bit nutty

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ghb93

In this highly authored inquiry AL Kennedy questions the cliched link between madness and creativity, claiming that being true to oneself and exploring ones identity is integral to the making or performing of one's art - however perilous this can seem. Losing one's mind is a negative, terrifying experience, freeing it can be nerve-wracking too, but also exhilarating, beautiful and eloquent - for everyone.

Many artists' creation has been defined as a kind of obsessive disorder, a compulsion they can barely control. So, after being diagnosed with tuberculosis, Chekhov chose to continue work rather than seek treatment. Acutely tuned senses, restlessness, intensity of focus, reduced inhibition, depression, a sense of the visionary and heightened imaginative powers are all hallmarks of both the creative and mentally ill individual - a number of recent studies support this link. And yet decades of studies have also questioned conventional definitions of madness, treatments of the "insane" and the long-term effects of "normal" behaviour.

Van Gogh or Virginia Woolf could not work when they were experiencing a psychotic episode; Sylvia Plath was probably pushed to the brink by wrongly prescribed medication - she too could not write during extreme states of depression..

As we hear, making art can be profoundly therapeutic, but to create, perform or make, requires a great deal of control and order.

With contributions from psychologist Dorothy Rowe, psychotherapist Adam Phillips, writer Lisa Appignanesi, playwright John Byrne, pianist James Rhodes, performance artist Bobby Baker, sculptor and artist Cornelia Parker, actor Edward Petherbridge and patients and staff at Bethlem Psychiatric Hospital.

Are philosophers' nuts what?

I had thought many times, in the area I live, that I was the only one who seems to see things in a philosophical way (a very religious area where probing questions are like ants at a picnic). I've described myself as the only potato chip on the party table full of nuts. However, I've also wondered if I would know I was crazy if I were. Goes into the perspective issue often associated with such thought experiments as the allegory of the cave, the experience machine, and the matrix. If I perceive myself to be in a good situation then aren't I?

Same could be said, those pointing the finger at artists and philosophers may actually be the crazy one, but from their perspective they seem normal.

I always liked the guy in So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish who lived in a house, but said he was outside the sanitarium while everyone else was inside.

John Watson alias Wonko the Sane.