I’m currently reading Margaret Bodens Creativity & Art. As a series of essays on creativity, it’s a worthwhile read, but it also leads me to wonder whether the definition of creativity she proposes — and I’ve come across many places — is sufficient.
In the Introduction, she recounts her definition. “Creativity in general is the generation of novel, surprising, and valuable ideas.” Her definition of “ideas” is broad enough to encompass works of art (among other things). She describes her definition as “threefold”, as she identifies three forms of surprise: the combinatorial form of surprise, the exploratory form of surprise, and the transformational form of surprise. I won’t go into further detail here, but it seems useful to analyse creativity in this way.
The question of novelty is an interesting one; Boden does differentiate between psychological (or individual) novelty — it’s new to the individual with the creative idea — and historical creativity — it’s a new idea in all of history. Both are valid ways of identifying something as novel. These two forms of novelty are also referred to in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entries on Creativity and Scientific Discovery.
For myself, I wonder if there is something missing there. While the SEP entry on Creativity does mention other possible forms of novelty, there does not seem to be any discussion of social novelty — when something may not be historically new but is new to the society in which it reappears.
The other issue I see with this definition is that it tends to emphasize product over process. I would contend that creativity is a process, first and foremost, and that a creative process may or may not lead to a creative product, result, or, indeed, work of art. A failed process can still be creative; the result of a creative person engaging in an act of creativity.
I am also sceptical of the inclusion of “value” as a requirement for considering something creative. It seems to me that value is far too subjective, and risks inviting a very instrumental and quantitative way of judging creativity. While Boden and others who argue for value as a criterion do take pains to specify that value also can exist at the individual level, it still seems to emphasize the external, the product, rather than what I would argue is the true subject of creativity; the embodied and enactive process.
Perhaps part of my scepticism originates with the fact that Boden is often associated with a computational theory of mind. My sense is computationalism can be a useful metaphor for many mental processes, it appears too simplistic to encompass the full scope of human (or, indeed, animal) cognition seen through a 4E lens. Our minds, bodies, actions, and social interactions are simply too complex to be explained through a computational metaphor — unless the power of computation is extended so far beyond the capabilities of any theorized computer system that the metaphor loses its grounding.
Here the SEP entry provides alternatives that I will be exploring more closely, when the authors state that creativity entails that “a product must arise from a certain kind of process—a process that exhibits surprise, originality, spontaneity, or agency—in order to count as creative.” This combination of factors feels better to me, but it still places too much emphasis on the product for my liking. Regardless, the SEP bibliography has led me to the writings of Maria Kronfeldner on this topic, and I will be delving more into her writings — starting with Creativity Naturalized.
Another philosopher mentioned in SEP is Berys Gaut, who, among other things, writes about if and how creativity can be learned. Unfortunately, my university library does not have access to his book chapter “Educating for Creativity” from 2014, but there are other papers of his that seem relevant to my research on this. Key to Gaut’s arguments, according to SEP, is,
Creativity is a disposition—involving both the ability and the motivation—to produce things that are new and valuable, and to do so in ways that express one’s agency through “the exercise of choice, evaluation, understanding, and judgment”. (link)
This is much closer to an understanding of creativity that I can work with. My take is filtered through a 4E cognition lens, and so words like “ability” and “motivation” lead me to think in terms of embodied and enactive (I’m not sure if that was what Gaut was thinking, but no matter). If I consider that creativity must first and foremost involve action; action which originates as a solution to a problem or hurdle faced by the creative individual — or group! That this action thus involves motivation to move forward in order to achieve something new.
Furthermore, I am very much in alignment with the emphasis on “choice, evaluation, understanding, and judgment.” Creativity does not exist without intention, and choice, evaluation, understanding, and judgment all support intention. (For what it’s worth, this is also why I cannot accept that artificial intelligence can be creative — AI has no intention of its own; only that which is programmed into it by its human creators.)
But also Gaut seems to return to the product, and claim that this product of creativity must have value. Again, I think this emphasis on product is misguided. Creativity is a process, which involves facing a problem, challenge, or obstacle. If I were to also frame this in Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of flow in creative processes, the problem faced must be of such a nature that it can be solved, but that the solution will require effort and methods not previously attempted or readily accessible without effort. This process may be iterative, but regardless involves finding a novel solution to the problem, challenge, or obstacle at hand. Creativity does not have to entail success; a failed solution can both be creative and useful — even if there is no product to show for it.
Let’s see if my understanding of creativity holds as I read more — but I am fairly certain my rejection of both “product” and “value” will hold.
