There are many examples of savants in the fields of mathematics, music, art and memory, but not philosophy.
I have a growing suspicion that many people who were thought of as prophets and great mystics may have been autistic savants in the realm of philosophy. They were people who had become utterly cut off from the world around them and obsessed with the inner, “spiritual” world.
As I understand it, autistic savants can achieve amazing feats of mimicry, but are largely incapable of original, creative thought or analysis. There are exceptions, notably in the field of the psychology and sociology of autism (in which they have ample experience), but in general it’s difficult for an autistic person to produce anything new in broader terms.
For example, using your list of potential fields:
Mathematics. They can perform astounding feats of mental agility, for example quickly providing answers to complex arithmetic or even algebraic problems, but cannot, say, invent or discover new approaches to number theory.
Music. This is almost always centred around replication. A savant might be able to listen to a piece by Bach once and play it entirely from memory, but would not be able to do much in the way of original composition.
Art. As for music, which is, of course, an art. It’s one thing being able to reproduce a picture entirely after a brief viewing, another to create an original of great merit.
Memory. Not really a ‘field’. There are plenty of cases of autistic people being able to recall things in exact and astounding detail, but it’s not a creative or analytical thing by its very nature. The nearest analogue would be the invention of memory - for example, writing a novel - but this isn’t an area in which autistic people excel.
Now philosophy.. This field demands original thought. While I’m sure that an autistic person could recite pages of stuff written by philosophers, I doubt that they could understand much of what was being said, let alone be able to produce their own contributions to the field.
It’s a shame that more isn’t understood about the mental processes of autistic people - both they and we could possibly benefit hugely from a better understanding of the whole subject.
I can state, with first-hand knowledge, that autistic people are fully capable of original, creative thought and analysis. In my experience, some autistic people seem to step outside the boundaries to find new solutions and different answers.
My five-year-old son is autistic, and almost non-verbal. He signs, rather than speaking. Last year, he elaborately signed how trees die in the autumn, and bloom again in the spring. How did he know that? We have no idea. Then he signed to me that Mom and Dad would die, someday. Then he asked if he would. I consider that a somewhat philosophical thought, though, for a five-year-old. (And a hard question to answer, at that.)
Sure, he’s no savant, but be careful about saying that autistic people are only imitating or mimicking or memorizing. That isn’t always true.
This is just from memory, but I saw a program once about an autistic boy who was maybe 7 or 8 and he produced wonderful freehand drawings of horses (his only subject). They were done in a very lose style, almost scribbled, but they were done in perfect perspective and showed movement and scale and were really quite well done. I’d say they were at the level of a talented high school student. He was being treated with meds and therapy and improved quite a bit but the really interesting thing was that as he got better, his drawings became typical childish drawings… tight and flat and completely lacking perspective and movement. A bit of a shame, really.
I completely withdraw my post - it was entirely based on my memory of an article I read somewhere on this subject years ago; I have absolutely no knowledge of autism other than a brief but interesting exchange with a high-functioning autistic chap in the USA, and we didn’t discuss creative thought, only day-to-day social functioning issues.
Profound apologies for muddying the waters - I’ll try not to PUI again. :mad:
Do not be so quick to apologize. I still found your response to be insightful.
Being an effective philosopher inherently requires a fairly comprehensive macro perspective of human motivations and behavior. These are things autistic people lack, almost by definition. So your answer is no.
Cite?
Besides, you can’t reason out that there haven’t been any…
This is probably impossible to answer objectively, but some objective things can be said. For example, keep in mind that ethics and aesthetics are just as much key components of philosophy as metaphysics and epistemology.
I think Marshall Stewart Ball has an amazing grasp of both ethics and aesthics. He writes, for example, that “To judge another is to judge God.” Certainly, that is the essence of Christian aesthetics, and ties directly into Christ’s admonition that “Whatsoever you have done to the least of these, my brothers, you have done also to me.” His writings are reminiscent, to me, of the great Eastern philosophers.
Here is one of his poems, in which epistemology finds beauty:
The Good Resting Mighty Place
Fine thinking loves
to learn dear thoughts.
Love is that resting place!
Soft mind that gives interest
to mighty sweet thoughts,
freeing the sleepy,
giving that good feeling.
Finding the answer will dearly
give the listener beauty.
That good gives an understanding heart.
Fine thinking gives the sweet answers.
http://www.daroldtreffert.com/
There can be no discussion of Savant Syndrome without also making HUGE mention of Dr. Darold Treffert. Much of what people “think” they know about autism and savantism is WRONG! Please go to the above link for more ACCURATE information on this amazing syndrome.
And if you are truly a fan, OR A SAVANT, please go to:
Join us in educating the world that we ARE creative, intelligent, and inspiring. No matter what “label” we are given. Just because our talents don’t fit into what mainstream society considers worthwhile, doesn’t mean we aren’t RIGHT in our thinking. After all, it was mainsteam society that thought the earth was flat!
And I’m sure it was an asperger or autistic Savant(Gallileo/Copernicus) that pictured(eidetically) our galaxy differently–that terrible heratic! Leonardo DaVinci was also suspected as an aspie savant–although he knew enough to kiss Vatican azz! His ability to use math in his art it is what enabled him to be an artistic GENIUS! Bet’cha didn’t know that!
Other than me, how many artists will tell’ya they use math to draw or paint. Hmmm…that’s Asperger mentality, plain and simple.
Keep calling Autistics “uncreative” and we’ll PROVE YOU WRONG!!!
…every time 
Can anyone explain to me what it would mean to be a “savant of philosophy”?
Written by an Aspie bordering on autism(and insanity from lack of understanding from lay-folk LOL)…
Within…
What are the colors of joy, or of tears?
When are the colors too luminous, if ever?
And if they dim…your soul’s light fades–
Into what feels…
Like everlasting…darkess
But if you keep your heart open
to the Light of Love
You will always find it’s brilliance
Within the innocence of a child’s eyes,
Or the purity of an infant’s smile…
Within family…
Or a true friend
The colors may seem to dissapate,
But they always exist
The hues of tenderness may seem shadowed,
But it’s only your spirit
…that has forgotten
Through Passion and Pain, Laughter and Tears,
Lie many shades of Love
Don’t look with your eyes,
Feel it from within…
Pleasure will always compromise
…for a will spirit
Happiness will always meet your heart
…half the way
And True Love will find You,
…when you pursue it
The shades of love can interrupt…
Any sorrow
They can illuminate your soul’s eclipse,
And there…
You’ll find passion and strength again…
You’ll know where to look…
If your heart leads the way
The solution exists…
Often right before you
And love is never further
Than a breath,
A voice,
A sound…
Look from Within…and it will find You!
Well, quite a lot of the great philosophers of history (though by no means all) seem to have been a bit asocial and weird, and rather a high proportion of them never married. (Some of the unmarried, such as Plato and Wittgenstein, may have been gay, but I doubt if they are enough enough to account for the high rate of singleness and even celibacy, and Wittgenstein, for one, was certainy weird beyond anything that hypothetical self-hating gayness would account for.) Kant is said to have been so regular in his habits that the people of Konigsberg could set their watches by the times when he passed by their houses on his regular afternoon walks (OCD maybe?). I would not be at all surprised if there were a statistical tendency toward philosophers being mildly autistic, although I think astro is right that full blown autism or Aspberger’s would make it almost impossible to be a competent general philosopher (although you might do well in certain narrow specialisms such as logic).
On the other hand, you are confused about the nature of philosophy if you think an autistic philosopher would be like a prophet or a mystic. Prophets are almost the antithesis of philosophers. The very essence of philosophy is that rational justifications are provided for any claims that are made, and the essence of being a prophet is to make claims without rational justification (beyond stuff like “God told me,” or "I saw it in a vision). For similar reasons, mysticism (which also abjures rational justification) is also something very different from philosophy, although some people have managed to combine the two by, in effect, being philosophers with respect to some issues and mystics with respect to others (and, in some cases, have used philosophical arguments to justify their being mystics about certain issues - Plato being an excellent example of this).
It has been suggested with some justification that Ludwig Wittgenstein may have had Asperger’s Syndrome, but since he died before the diagnosis existed it is very hard to tell because there just isn’t enough solid information to base that assumption on, and in either case he was better educated than most people so it wouldn’t be an example of savantism. http://wittgensteinforum.wordpress.com/2007/06/29/did-wittgenstein-have-aspergers-syndrome/
They’d think about if for a while then say: “It’s all just crap, isn’t it”.
Are you calling me retarded? 
I sometimes feel like a “savant of philosophy.” From an early age I found certain religious ideas “trivial”, I felt I “natively understood” zen buddhism (the koans have always made sense to me, btw), and I never encountered an idea expressed by one of the giants of philosophy that I hadn’t previously thought of. I can assure you I take this experience with a grain of salt; I suspect many feel this way about a lot of things. Sometimes things seem “transparent” to you, but that doesn’t, by any objective measure, make you “right.” People who think something is “obvious” are very often proved wrong. Unfortunately in philosophy that can’t be done so easily. I don’t think “savant of philosophy” will ever exist because there is no universal way of agreeing on the correctness of philosophical ideas.
There haven’t been many prodigies in philosophy – by which I mean folks whose significant, mature, original work was completed before, say, the age of 30.
Wittgenstein’s an exception, and so was Hume, but I can’t really think of anyone else offhand. Certainly there are some very bright people working on advanced degrees who might be considered prodigies under a looser definition, but the nature of academic coursework in philosophy highly emphasizes a critical approach, as opposed to coming with a Tractatus and so forth, although merely working in history of philosophy is absolutely disparaged pretty universally.
Sorry, but just feeling that something is obvious, even if you are actually right, does not amount to doing philosophy. As I said above, the very essence of philosophy is giving a rational argument in support of whatever it is that you are claiming. It does not really matter what the claim is about - in principle philosophy can be about anything - and although it is true that some topics are traditionally more associated with philosophy than others, you are not doing philosophy just in virtue of having an opinion on one of those traditionally philosophical topics (not if you can’t back it up with well reasoned arguments).
You thought of Hume, but not Berkeley?
(And, just to continue the hijack a brief moment longer, I’d argue that GE Moore just barely squeaks in – since he moved on from The Nature of Judgment to bang out both The Refutation of Idealism and his famous Principia Ethica while he was still in his twenties.)