Philosophising about creativity

Abstract

We live in a creativity-obsessed society. Many of our heroes, whether in science, technology or art, are celebrated because of their creativity; entire professions think of themselves as composed of 'creatives', and many of our education policies and priorities are directed at enhancing creativity (Robinson and Aronica 2016). Given this interest, it is no surprise that work on creativity and associated phenomena in disciplines such as psychology has boomed over the past sixty years or more (Sawyer 2012). In contrast, over the same period, philosophy has had comparatively little to say on the topic, despite the fact that philosophers as great as Plato and Kant have made significant contributions to it. Things have, however, started to change in the last fifteen years or so, and one can chart the rise in philosophical interest in creativity through a series of anthologies: Gaut and Livingston (2003), Krausz, Dutton and Bardsley (2009), and Paul and Kaufman (2014). The present volume builds on these volumes, along with other recent writings in the philosophy of creativity, to help advance and shape the emerging field of the philosophy of creativity. We have asked twenty philosophers, each prominent in his or her field, to write about creativity; for many of them, this is the first time that they have published on the topic. The topics discussed are wide-ranging: whether creativity is a virtue, its connection or lack thereof to value, its relation to agency, whether it can be explained and if so how, and how it operates in multiple domains, including philosophy, mathematics, art, morality and politics. These issues are discussed from a variety of perspectives, sometimes 2 opposing ones. As groundwork for understanding the positions advanced, the present chapter first surveys the state of the art in some central issues in the philosophy of creativity, and then summarises the papers in the volume.

Aesthetic testimony, understanding and virtue

“…Similarly, the account of aesthetic virtue sketched here can be applied to existing debates in aesthetics, such as arguments about whether particular traits, such as creativity, are aesthetic virtues. 45 We are also in a position to give an account of aesthetic appreciation: appreciating a work of art is responding to it through action, non-cognitive and cognitive attitudes, ideally as the virtuous would (i.e. by means of aesthetic understanding).…”

The Creative Side of Recreative Imagination

“…11 In any case, such disagreement shares an underlying goal: to account for the idea that the creative product has to be generated in the right kind of way. The dominant view is that creativity cannot rely on imitative or mechanical procedures, but rather has to be a matter of spontaneous and flexible cognitive processes (Gaut 2003;Gaut & Kieran 2018;Kronfeldner 2018;Hills & Bird 2019;Paul & Stokes 2014). It is also quite common to think that unconscious or non-inferential thought processes constitute the core of creativity (for criticism see Baumeister et al 2018 andStokes 2014), or at least of exceptional creativity (Langland-Hassan 2020).…”

“…The adjective "creative" can also be applied to individuals. What its is to be a creative person is another less explored topic, which can be tied to the subjective disposition to recruit imaginative capacities (Gaut & Kieran 2018;Hills & Bird 2019). The necessity of the value component has been questioned by Hills and Bird (2019), who suggest adding imagination, fertility, and motivation.…”

“…In the literature these are presented as different models of the role of imagination in creativity (Gaut & Kieran 2018) -e.g., the "search model" (Gaut 2003); Gaut's own proposal of considering imagination as the vehicle of active creativity; and the "connection model" (Beaney 2005). Rather than being conflicting proposals, they all seem to grasp a grain of truth about imagination in creativity.…”

Creativity and genius as epistemic virtues: Kant and early post‐Kantians on the teachability of epistemic virtue

“…An overview of philosophical debates on creativity is given inGaut and Kieran 2018; see alsoKieran 2019. For a comprehensive study of the emergence of creativity as an imperative with powerful roles in modern societies see Reckwitz 2012; but here, creativity is mainly linked to the realm of the aesthetic.2 A detailed discussion of the question whether creativity is indeed an epistemic virtue-with an affirmative answer-can be found in Baehr 2018.…”