Education

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) is one of the most important figures in philosophy because, rather than focusing on reason, he argued that desire is central to human experience. His work is often regarded as primarily pessimistic because he believed that our desires and drives lead to suffering. He was also ahead of his time in focusing on unconscious motives and in incorporating Eastern ideas into his philosophy.

Clearly, Schopenhauer was a highly intelligent person who also hung around many similarly gifted people. He had some thoughts on how people can recognize whether someone is highly intelligent. Julian de Medeiros, a TikToker and Substacker who shares his thoughts on philosophy, identified two indicators Schopenhauer considered signs of extreme intelligence.

What are the signs that someone is highly intelligent?

1. Intelligent people are socially awkward

“[Schopenhauer] basically argued that the more intelligent somebody is the more they struggle with social interactions. Or, as he put it, the more intelligent someone is the more at risk they are of becoming antisocial,” de Medeiros says. “What he meant is that intelligent people like to be alone. They tend to be natural introverts. In fact, they have a small select group of people they trust, and they feel a little bit uncomfortable when surrounded by other people, especially strangers.”

2. Intelligent people are sensitive to sounds

“He also said, intelligent people are very sensitive to sound. They really like to control their environment,” de Medeiros continues. “So Schopenhauer was basically saying that the more intelligent somebody is, the more they relish their time and space, the more they like to be alone, the more intelligent the person is, the more they like to keep their own company.”

Schopenhauer wrote an essay, "On Noise," where he made the connection between sound and intelligence:

"Certainly there are people, nay, very many, who will smile at [my predicament], because they are not sensitive to noise; it is precisely these people, however, who are not sensitive to argument, thought, poetry or art, in short, to any kind of intellectual impression: a fact to be assigned to the coarse quality and strong texture of their brain tissues.

Was Schopenhauer correct in his assumptions about intelligence?

The question remains: was Schopenhauer, a man of the 19th century, right about the two signs that someone is highly intelligent? When it comes to smart people being socially awkward, it’s difficult to say because research shows conflicting findings. Studies show that intelligent people are very good at reading social cues from other people, such as their tone of voice or body language. However, studies also show that highly intelligent individuals often focus on minutiae, which makes it difficult for them to act naturally in social situations. They are also very self-aware, which makes it harder for them to be comfortable in social situations.

When it comes to smart people being bothered by sounds, that’s true. A study out of Northwestern University found that real-world creativity, a sign of intelligence, is associated with an inability to filter out irrelevant sensory information. Therefore, they can be easily overwhelmed by background noise.