Alright, maybe I'm taking the wrong conclusions away from Schopenhauer.I think we're pretty much in agreement. Of course becoming a great mind doesn't mean going to the other extreme. Perhaps it's a matter of bad choice of words on my part. What i meant is that the primary concern of great minds is not material gain, doesn't mean they are entirely unconcerned with material wealth though. When they express themselves while writing a book their first and main concern isn't "will i make money out of this" and that's the difference between them and smart minds who have instrumentalized their mind in achieving success and the sole focus of practical gain. That's why i think that people whose primary goal is practical and not knowledge itself never become great minds.I think there's a difference between being unconcerned with material wealth and not having material wealth as your primary goal. I also think that sometimes it's not so much about material wealth per se, but about material consequences. There have been philosophers that very much want to create material results, ones that don't result in their own personal accumulation of wealth, but as I said can not find a way to reconcile society's methods of accumulating wealth with their own philosophies. I think that having wealth accumulation as a primary goal creates a sort of single-mindedness that precludes an individual from "becoming a great mind," I just don't think that becoming a great mind means going to the other extreme. I think that becoming completely disconnected from material gain also creates some disconnect from affecting change and creates the possibility of philosphy simply being a hedonistic pursuit. As one philospher put it, "philosphers, up to this point, have only interpreted the world in different ways, the point is to change it."theone86
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