Abstract
Imputations of talent and genius have historically been associated with a radical individualization of the origin of success. However, the fields of activity that make use of these imputations can be considered :
- As systems of activity in which the main beneficiary of the attribution of talent or genius certainly occupies a central position, but can only work within a network of collaborations and interactions that make his activity possible and sustainable.
- As the product of historical evolutions that have had to form autonomous spheres and professional worlds endowed with their own standards of practice and evaluation.
We examine the first argument in particular, distinguishing several formulas for the deindividualization of talent and genius. Horizontal deindividualization is achieved, as in the scheme proposed by Howard Becker [19], by locating reputation-generating individual work within a network of interdependencies and functional cooperation, to which the organization of work by project lends an additional dimension. Vertical de-individualization invokes the contribution of previous generations, as argued by Georg Simmel in his Philosophy of Money, to radically distinguish complex or "superior" work from simple work, or as argued by the Marxian theory of value, which holds that all work requires an infinite series of inputs. And Proudhon had made the de-individualization of creative work the lever of his critique of literary and artistic property and, more generally, the principle of an egalitarian conception of talents and trades [20].
