- #106
hypnagogue
Staff Emeritus
Science Advisor
Gold Member
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zoobyshoe said:Well, this manner of stating it implies the disagreeable (to me) notion that one has to suffer to create art. It implies that to make a person into an artist you have to get them and keep them depressed. This was a common notion of the Romantic era. It's not true, because I know some really good artists who are positive, upbeat people.
Stating that for some people, depression helps artistic quality or productivity certainly does not imply that for all people, being depressed is a necessary condition for creating art. That inference is fraught with logical errors. It infers a universal claim from an existential claim, and it infers necessity from sufficiency, both of which are invalid inferences.