The Philosophy of Creativity: New Essays

by Elliot Samuel Paul (Editor), Scott Barry Kaufman (Editor)

Creativity pervades human life. It is the mark of individuality, the vehicle of self-expression, and the engine of progress in every human endeavor. It also raises a wealth of neglected and yet evocative philosophical What is the role of consciousness in the creative process? How does the audience for a work for art influence its creation? How can creativity emerge through childhood pretending? Do great works of literature give us insight into human nature? Can a computer program really be creative? How do we define creativity in the first place? Is it a virtue? What is the difference between creativity in science and art? Can creativity be taught?

The new essays that comprise The Philosophy of Creativity take up these and other key questions and, in doing so, illustrate the value of interdisciplinary exchange. Written by leading philosophers and psychologists involved in studying creativity, the essays integrate philosophical insights with empirical research.

Genres: Philosophy, Psychology, Essays

336 pages, Hardcover

First published April 11, 2014

Reviews

[Kamakana · Rating 4 out of 5]

310718: later addition. second to last essay is very excited by ‘heuristics’ applicable each one in several or multiple fields, and key to teaching skills relevant to creating anything from tractors to abstract painting, to offer a way of ‘teaching’ creativity, which lauds creativity often creative teaching beings of sometime creative beings, but his pedagogical model might undercut his arguments, he elaborates that wonderful knowledge ‘heuristic’ but the author says his model is only as good as the student, that because it might not create great art here in this student does not mean it is always fails but only adds probabilities fail and probabilities succeed. is this offering the kantian ‘genius’? my thoughts are that for any artist knowing the ‘rules of the game’, knows ‘heuristic’ applicable, even if only as so much background noise, even only as probabilities, the artist emulates then strives to overcome rules, the artist finds something like that in the right gesture, being exactly as effective in finding and expressing this, in a way that not even consciously applying any of these rules (made to be broken) and sometimes striving to escape this heuristic model... but again the author is focused on the ‘how’ rather than the ‘what’ that tells the truth no matter how he lies...

first review: an interesting exploration of a sort of approach to creativity and philosophy- though i would replace ‘of’ with ‘and’, for as i read this as a collection and thus really good here and less there, though there seems to be a common thread, foundation, belief, and this is the validity of territory usually occupied by ‘continental’ philosophy, but from a very different plateau. this territory is broadly concerned with creativity, as widely defined, but as i read on i tried to connect the title, i thought that it is the title that is very accurate and when i found it at u library, on a shelving cart, i did the usual look at the index at the end- and there is no mention of merleau-ponty! let alone any other french and german and italian thinkers, yet i was moved to try and follow this other school of thought...

so i wondered first is the title giving the wrong impression, but decided no it is just as i climb around, swim deep, cross scorching dessert, trying to understandingly follow the right sort of philosophy somewhat more familiar to say philosophers of science, to all the names i had never heard of... could the title be reversed to ‘creativity of philosophy’? or ‘philosophy creatively’ or in the end is ‘and’ replacing ‘of’ enough? some of these essays are very interesting, some less- only skipping through when it gets particularly if and only if and necessary and sufficient and theory of mind or something...

i finally could offer beliefs and ways in which i had misread and even before did not read the title close enough, accidentally replacing ‘of’ with ‘and’ every time i read further essays, for it does fit and tell you where this essay goes and this and this and this... until i am able to figure how to answer my angle of approach, and this is that what is given is actually more ‘how’ any art can be created, this involving essays, footnotes, references to all these other works- and the given is to me less ‘how’ and more ‘what’, is to understand more aesthetic, is more what the author gives and even involving technology and the given is the ‘what’ however, the given is of value not in creativity and education, in devising all these separate or intertextual artifacts, but creativity is finally ‘how’ as we had in the past and have now and will have in our future all sorts of ways from games to narratives to films we create, to offer ’what’...

i remain sceptical when the essay creates a hierarchy, for such reductive suggests to me exactly what any art may be, be found, be created, then the essay ranks the relative stability of one life has an inverse relationship with the greatness of the art (... suffer for your art) but then he offers ‘empirical’ proof of how folk knowledge/cliche is ‘truth’ of any artist, of psychological fragility, of instability, of being somehow ‘tortured’, is here affirmed, but then he wants to educate, inculcate, creativity through critical awareness and has some scientific pedagogical knowledge... but by then i am counting all the ways such pattern lives and emotions and so on fits my father’s elder and younger sister, both artists, verbal and visual, father theoretician scientist, so obviously following scientific ‘heuristics’, and then what of my own life- yes we have all had some critical, formative psychological events in the past and as much i would like to not be so in my case, well...

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection of important essays on creativity that go far deeper than any of the popular guides to creativity that turn up with monotonous regularity. As someone researching and writing on this subject, I read the majority of what is published: this is the most thorough and nuanced book of its kind to appear in the last few years..

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Borrowed from the library and just read Chapter 2 Creativity and the Insight That Literature Brings, by Gregory Currie (pps 39-61). This chapter stimulated a strange mix of aversion and satisfaction in me. Currie pulls apart the prevalent misperception that reading literature has a beneficial effect on the readers character. Currie seems to be coming from an Empirical standpoint, highlighting the implicit assumptions and lack of evidence in support of the claimed benefits of Literature. This is a tempered and intelligent, if somewhat dry and academic interpretation of phenomena like character and virtue. I appreciate the philosophical interrogation of the 'true' place of literature, that illustrates the lack of foundation to claims about benefits.

It is not that I relish the undermining theme, I don't, but I feel deceived by Baby Boomer promise that being literate is the most certain way to get ahead in this life. Currie dresses up vulgar postmodern doubts about EVERYTHING, as cleverness. I know my limits - I'm no Einstein, but I'm not a fool and don't like being talked down to, and Currie leaves me feeling this work is beyond my pay grade.

Many intriguing concepts, and although I am tempted to delve deeper into this book, especially Chapter 9: Creativity and Consciousness, Chapter 10: The Origins of Creativity, and Chapter 13: Educating for Creativity, I don't think I will be renewing this book.