Common sense has it that some of the greatest achievements that are to our credit are creative, whether artistic or otherwise. But standard theories of achievement and merit struggle to explain them, since the praiseworthiness of creative achievements isn’t grounded in effort, quality of will, disclosing the agent’s values, or even reasons-responsiveness. I argue that it’s distinctive of artistic or quasi-artistic creative activity that it is guided by what I call aspirational aims, which are formulated in terms of evaluative predicates (...) (like painting something “moving” or engineering something “nifty”) whose descriptive realizers are not known in advance. Aesthetic creativity itself fundamentally consists in perceiving or conceiving of some modification of raw material or a medium as promoting or constituting a novel way of realizing the aspirational aim. Creative achievements like poems and paintings are then to our credit in virtue of being exercises of spontaneity that disclose a deep layer of our selves that is manifest in active perception of affordances, showing that there is something beautiful about the way we experience the world, as a Sally Rooney character puts it. As with other creditworthy achievements, what makes them difficult is that simply trying won’t suffice to make success likely – but unlike in many other cases, neither will trying hard, since we have no direct volitional or rational control over perceptual spontaneity. (shrink)

Creativity has often been declared, especially by philosophers, as the last frontier of science. The assumption is that it will defy explanation forever. I will defend two claims in order to oppose this assumption and to demystify creativity: (1) the perspective that creativity cannot be explained wrongly identifies creativity with what I shall call metaphysical freedom; (2) the Darwinian approach to creativity, a prominent naturalistic account of creativity, fails to give an explanation of (...) class='Hi'>creativity, because it confuses conceptual issues with explanation. I will close with some remarks on the status and differences in some explanations available in contemporary cognitive science. (shrink)

This article offers a novel take on what philosophers have called problems of “practical underdetermination” in order to identify a form of creative epistemic agency operative in the means by which researchers cope with such problems. In developing my analysis, I contrast my “experimental dead-space” (EDS) formulation of practical underdetermination with the more standard “epistemic gap” formulation. Drawing on prior work, I embed the idea of an EDS within a broader unit of analysis—a “research platform”—and identify an experimental dead-space with (...) what I call, borrowing terms from Stuart Kauffman, an “epistemic adjacent possible.” This enables me to characterize the form of creativity I have in mind. Finally, I revisit the case study for which I originally formulated the idea of an EDS in order to show how my expanded analysis enables us to appreciate how research platforms in experimental science can creatively develop in genuinely novel, “unprestatable” ways. (shrink)

Creativity has received, and continues to receive, comparatively little analysis in philosophy and the brain and behavioural sciences. This is in spite of the importance of creative thought and action, and the many and varied resources of theories of mind. Here an alternative approach to analyzing creativity is suggested: start from the bottom up with minimally creative thought. Minimally creative thought depends non-accidentally upon agency, is novel relative to the acting agent, and could not have been tokened before (...) the time it is in fact tokened, relative to the agent in question. Thoughts that meet these three conditions—agency, psychological novelty, and modal—are what may be called cognitive breakthroughs. Even if such breakthroughs are not necessary to or definitive of richer creativity, they are indeed central to much of creativity. The minimal analysis provides a more workable explanandum for theories of creativity of varied motivation and method. (shrink)

This entry provides a substantive overview of research and debates concerning creativity in philosophy and related fields. Topics covered include definitions of creativity, whether creativity can be learned, whether it can be explained, attempts to explain creativity in cognitive science, and whether computer programs or AI systems can be creative.

Examining the complex role that motivation plays in creativity foregrounds the role of intrinsic motivation in paradigmatic cases of creative achievement. This is significant given the neglect of the role of motivation in the philosophical literature. Furthermore, given the way in which intrinsic motivation typically grounds and enables the cultivation of creativity for creatures like us, it pays to think of creativity in virtue-theoretic terms. As suggested by both empirical and conceptual considerations, intrinsic motivation insulates agents from (...) pressures against or inhibitors of creativity. It helps to explain robustness across different situations and influences. Conceiving of creativity as a virtue of character also makes best sense of how and why we praise or criticize as we do and shows us how to cultivate creativity. (shrink)

This chapter explores the philosophical case for thinking of imagination and creativity as skills. Though the philosophical discussion of this topic has generally operated on two separate tracks, one focused on developing a framework for treating imagination as a skill and one focused on developing a framework for treating creativity as a skill, the goal of the chapter is to bring these two tracks together. After the philosophical case for treating imagination and creativity as skills has been (...) fleshed out, the discussion turns to a consideration of objections. Though some of these objections concern only the skill-based framework for imagination and others concern only the skill-based framework for creativity, some of the objections apply to both. Responses to the objections are then offered. The chapter concludes with an exploration of how treating imagination and creativity as skills might shed light on the relationship between imagination and creativity. (shrink)

The creative aspect of language use provides a set of phenomena that a science of language must explain. It is the “central fact to which any signi- ficant linguistic theory must address itself” and thus “a theory of language that neglects this ‘creative’ aspect is of only marginal interest” (Chomsky 1964: 7–8). Therefore, the form and explanatory depth of linguistic science is restricted in accordance with this aspect of language. In this paper, the implications of the creative aspect of language (...) use for a scientific theory of language will be discussed, noting the possible further implications for a science of the mind. It will be argued that a corollary of the creative aspect of language use is that a science of language can study the mechanisms that make language use possible, but that such a science cannot explain how these mechanisms enter into human action in the form of language use. (shrink)

Artificial creativity is presented as a counter to Benjamin’s conception of an “aura” in art. Where Benjamin sees authenticity as art’s critical element, generative artificial intelligence operates as pure inauthenticity. Two elements of purely inauthentic art are described: elusiveness and reflection. Elusiveness is the inability to find an origin-story for the created artwork, and reflection is the ability for perceivers to impose any origin that serves their own purposes. The paper subsequently argues that these elements widen the scope of (...) artistic and creative potential. To illustrate, an example is developed around musical improvisation with an artificial intelligence partner. Finally, a question is raised about whether the inauthentic creativity of AI in art can be extended to human experience and our sense of our identities. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Generative artificial intelligence is transforming the way we make, and think about, art. With prompting from human users, these generative systems now produce aesthetically compelling and seemingly creative works in a variety of artistic domains. In doing so, they challenge the ways we think about artistic credit, about creativity, and about the mechanism of legal copyright, which is meant to protect and promote creativity in a capitalist art market. All of this is currently at play in the (...) courtroom, as artists contest the ways in which their artworks can be rightfully fed into these artificial systems (“the problem of the inputs”), and other artists are challenged over whether they might be credited for the visual images these systems generate (“the problem of the outputs”). Here, we explore these problems as they arise in visual art. We argue that the contested legal landscape surrounding these artificial systems reflects the ways they challenge our received notions of artistic credit and creativity. And we suggest that clarifying or changing the application of copyright in light of their generative capacities will ultimately involve revising our conception of art. (shrink)

We can formulate an argument against AI creativity from agency. By some accounts, creativity requires agency, and agency is, many think, not possible for AI. This is due to the typical conception of agency as a capacity for intentional action. Intentional action is thought to require mental states, a severe challenge for machine intelligence. On the face of things, the agency argument seems to provide a straightforward route to argue for the impossibility of AI creativity. However, this (...) path, I argue, is not so clear. In this paper, I outline the agency argument against AI creativity, before calling into question the apparent simplicity of this argument. I argue, ultimately, that the reasoning behind the inclusion of agency in accounts of creativity does not necessitate the use of intentional action, but can instead be satisfied by a minimal teleological account of agency. (shrink)

It aimed to identify the strategic creativity in Islamic banks in Palestine between reality and implementation. The study adopted the descriptive analytical approach. A questionnaire was designed as a tool for the study. The study community consisted of all employees in Islamic banks from the top and middle management and the study has been applied to the Palestinian Islamic bank and the Arab Islamic Bank. The comprehensive inventory method was used, given the small size of the study sample, as (...) questionnaires were distributed to (175) employees, and a number of (5) categories were chosen from each branch of the bank(general manager, deputy general manager, director Branch, department head, department manager). (164) questionnaires have been used Recovered with a recovery rate of (93.71%). The study showed a number of results, the most important of which is the availability of dimensions of strategic innovation at a high level in Islamic banks in Palestine with a relative weight of (82.22%). In addition, that there are no differences between the averages estimates about the reality of the study variables in Islamic banks due to (gender, age group, educational qualification, number of years of service, job title). The study also presented a set of recommendations, including that the bank should provide the environment and the appropriate climate for employees to invest their intellectual energy, urge them to strategic creativity, and deal fairly with all creative ideas regardless of their source. (shrink)

Abstract: The study aimed to identify the creative behavior in the Palestinian civil organizations between reality and expectations, and the study used the descriptive analytical approach and the questionnaire as a main tool for collecting data from employees of associations operating in the governorates of Gaza Strip, and the cluster sample method was used and the sample size was (343) individuals and has been recovered (298) Resolution. The following results were reached: The relative weight of the measure of creative behavior (...) was 78.99 (%), and there were no statistically significant differences in creative behavior according to the gender variable, age group, educational qualification, specialization, while the results indicated that there were differences according to the number of years of service. The study presented a set of recommendations, the most important of which are: the necessity of working to follow up the strategic plan for NGOs using electronic messages as it paves the way for achieving excellence and creativity in the field of work, the need to hold meetings and workshops with the local community and this helps them determine the needs of the community. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of whether artificial systems can be considered creative in the absence of cognition. It advances a novel perspective by grounding the analysis on a foundational premise: generative AI systems, such as LLMs and GMIs, are non-cognitive. This distinction is established through the application of the Minimal Cognitive Grid (MCG), offering a more precise entry point into the creativity debate. Despite their non-cognitive nature, these systems produce outputs that meet standard criteria for creativity—novelty and (...) usefulness—and reproduce, in functional terms, the stages of human creative processes. A comparative analysis with the Wallas–Jaoui model supports this claim. However, the absence of intentionality and authenticity limits any attribution of genuine creativity. So, how can we define Artificial Creativity? To resolve this, the paper introduces a minimal definition of artificial creativity as a non-cognitive, non-intentional, and non-authentic generative mechanism. This is the first attempt to define the concept directly, rather than by exclusion. The definition clarifies the theoretical boundaries between natural and artificial creativity, avoids anthropocentric bias, and establishes a foundation for future research in computational creativity and philosophy of AI. (shrink)

Three kinds of things may be creative: persons, processes, and products. The standard definition of creativity, used nearly by consensus in psychological research, focuses specifically on products and says that a product is creative if and only if it is new and valuable. We argue that at least one further condition is necessary for a product to be creative: it must have been produced by the right kind of process. We argue furthermore that this point has an interesting epistemological (...) implication: when you judge a product to be creative--attributing creativity--you are not just judging it to be new and valuable. Even if you did not witness how it was produced, you are also making a judgement about how it was produced. (shrink)

Margaret Boden famously theorizes that the highest form of creativity is more than the production of new ideas—it involves the transformation of a conceptual space consisting of all possible ideas that a person can obtain. This article examines whether this notion of transformative creativity can be applied to the field of biology. Biological transformative creativity (BTC) is theoretically conceivable if an extension of Boden’s original framework is allowed to include non-conceptual spaces as the object of transformation. However, (...) identifying specific biological phenomena that warrant the label of transformative creativity in living systems poses a substantial challenge. After scrutinizing two recent theories regarding BTC—one connecting BTC to evolution and the other equaling it to self-organization—this paper turns to a third alternative hypothesis that emphasizes the autonomous, self-productive mechanisms through which novel organizational patterns and morphological features take shape. To unpack this idea, the paper draws on extensive evidence in epigenetic studies and argues that autonomous transformation of overall possibilities of living organisms occurs at the individual level primarily due to flexible modifications of gene expression norms in the organism. Then, the paper analyzes the developmental plasticity of _C. elegans_ and the origin and differentiation of castes in social insects as two examples of the epigenetic form of BTC. The account is expected to contribute to a more appropriate understanding of the origin of human creativity and the creative nature of life. (shrink)

Margaret Boden presents a series of essays in which she explores the nature of creativity in a wide range of art forms. Creativity is the generation of novel, surprising, and valuable ideas. Boden identifies three forms of creativity (combinational, exploratory, and transformational) each eliciting a different form of surprise.

The Turing Test is claimed by many to be a way to test for the presence, in computers, of such ``deep'' phenomena as thought and consciousness. Unfortunately, attempts to build computational systems able to pass TT have devolved into shallow symbol manipulation designed to, by hook or by crook, trick. The human creators of such systems know all too well that they have merely tried to fool those people who interact with their systems into believing that these systems really have (...) minds. And the problem is fundamental: the structure of the TT is such as to cultivate tricksters. A better test is one that insists on a certain restrictive epistemic relation between an artificial agent A, its output o, and the human architect H of A – a relation which, roughly speaking, obtains when H cannot account for how A produced o. We call this test the ``Lovelace Test'' in honor of Lady Lovelace, who believed that only when computers originate things should they be believed to have minds. (shrink)

This paper describes a theory that explains both the creativity and the efficiency of people's conceptual combination. In the constraint theory, conceptual combination is controlled by three constraints of diagnosticity, plausibility, and informativeness. The constraints derive from the pragmatics of communication as applied to compound phrases. The creativity of combination arises because the constraints can be satisfied in many different ways. The constraint theory yields an algorithmic model of the efficiency of combination. The C3 model admits the full (...) creativity of combination and yet efficiently settles on the best interpretation for a given phrase. The constraint theory explains many empirical regularities in conceptual combination, and makes various empirically verified predictions. In computer simulations of compound phrase interpretation, the C3 model has produced results in general agreement with people's responses to the same phrases. (shrink)

Virtue accounts of innovation ethics have recognized the virtue of creativity as an admirable trait in innovators. However, such accounts have not paid sufficient attention to the way creativity functions as a collective phenomenon. We propose a collective virtue account to supplement existing virtue accounts. We base our account on Kieran’s definition of creativity as a virtue and distinguish three components in it: creative output, mastery and intrinsic motivation. We argue that all of these components can meaningfully (...) be attributed to innovation groups. This means that we can also attribute the virtue of creativity to group agents involved in innovation. Recognizing creativity as a collective virtue in innovation is important because it allows for a more accurate evaluation of how successful innovation generally happens. The innovator who takes a collective virtue account of creativity seriously will give attention to the facilitation of an environment where the group can flourish collectively, rather than only nurturing the individual genius. (shrink)

Organizational leaders are eager to unlock the creative potential of followers. Yet, there is growing evidence that creativity can also have a dark side within organizations. Building on research linking creativity and unethical behavior, we develop the construct of creative unethicality—behavior that is both unethical and novel. We draw on social exchange theory to develop a model that identifies both why and when creative unethicality emerges within organizations. Specifically, we investigate the exchange dynamics through which creative support provided (...) by empowering leaders facilitates creative unethicality under conditions of high performance pressure. Across two multi-wave, multi-source field studies with employee-coworker and leader-subordinate dyads and an experimental study with a novel unethicality measure in a business simulation, we find convergent support for our theoretical model. These findings have important theoretical and practical implications for fostering creativity in organizations without simultaneously facilitating creative unethicality. (shrink)

Beginning with the prevalent idea that creativity is the ability to make or do things having valuable novelty, the paper explores a variety of axiological and novelty conditions and defends an instrumental success condition. I discuss Robert K. Merton's distinction between 'originality' and 'priority', and Margaret Boden's similar distinction between historical and psychological creativity, as well as Thomas Reid's and Bruce Vermazen's remarks on relations between novelty and value.

This chapter considers the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to exhibit creativity and imagination, in light of recent advances in generative AI and the use of deep neural networks (DNNs). Reasons for doubting that AI exhibits genuine creativity or imagination are considered, including the claim that the creativity of an algorithm lies in its developer, that generative AI merely reproduces patterns in its training data, and that AI is lacking in a necessary feature for creativity or (...) imagination, such as consciousness, agency, metacognitive awareness, or the use of mental imagery. In each case, a counterargument is provided that AI already has or soon will overcome the apparent barrier. In some instances, this is because the critical features deemed lacking in AI may not be necessary for human creativity and imagination either. In others, it is because important developmental and structural similarities between humans and generative AI have been insufficiently appreciated. (shrink)

An outstanding collection of specially commissioned chapters by leading philosophers who explore the relationship between philosophy and creativity. Essential readings for those interested in the philosophy of creativity, it is also an extremely useful resource for those in related subjects such as music, art and visual studies, literature and education.

We can formulate an argument against AI creativity from agency. By some accounts, creativity requires agency, and agency is, many think, not possible for AI. This is due to the typical conception of agency as a capacity for intentional action. Intentional action is thought to require mental states, a severe challenge for machine intelligence. On the face of things, the agency argument seems to provide a straightforward route to argue for the impossibility of AI creativity. However, this (...) path, I argue, is not so clear. In this paper, I outline the agency argument against AI creativity, before calling into question the apparent simplicity of this argument. I argue, ultimately, that the reasoning behind the inclusion of agency in accounts of creativity does not necessitate the use of intentional action, but can instead be satisfied by a minimal teleological account of agency. (shrink)

There is no prepared script for social and cultural life. People work it out as they go along. Creativity and Cultural Improvisation casts fresh, anthropological eyes on the cultural sites of creativity that form part of our social matrix. The book explores the ways creative agency is attributed in the graphic and performing arts and in intellectual property law. It shows how the sources of creativity are embedded in social, political and religious institutions, examines the relation between (...) creativity and the perception and passage of time, and reviews the creativity and improvisational quality of anthropological scholarship itself. Individual essays examine how the concept of creativity has changed in the history of modern social theory, and question its applicability as a term of cross-cultural analysis. The contributors highlight the collaborative and political dimensions of creativity and thus challenge the idea that creativity arises only from individual talent and expression. (shrink)

This paper explores the intersection of art history and AI technology. Special attention is paid to Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), a machine learning technology widely used in AI art. This technology is particularly interesting to art history and the philosophy of art because it raises enduring questions about the creative process of artmaking, especially what constitutes a new and original work of art. While this is a relatively new area, it is possible to discern emerging directions where art and AI (...) intersect. One pressing issue concerns the use (or misuse) of algorithmically enabled technologies and datasets to perpetuate longstanding art-historical biases. The critical position adopted in this paper shares this concern. I examine a notable example of GAN technology that claims to create original art styles. While such experiments in computational creativity are technically interesting, their artistic aims can be questionable. I argue a mechanical model of artistic development based solely on the autonomy of style is problematic for at least two reasons: 1) it uncritically reinstates a formalist view of art history; 2) it recreates a narrow style-centric ‘historical modernism.’ However, despite voicing these reservations, I also discuss the potential of this technology to engage with topics of critical relevance to art history and the philosophy of art. (shrink)

In this essay we collect and put together a number of ideas relevant to the under- standing of the phenomenon of creativity, confining our considerations mostly to the domain of cognitive psychology while we will, on a few occasions, hint at neuropsy- chological underpinnings as well. In this, we will mostly focus on creativity in science, since creativity in other domains of human endeavor have common links with scientific creativity while differing in numerous other specific respects. (...) We begin by briefly introducing a few basic notions relating to cognition, among which the notion of ‘concepts’ is of basic relevance. The myriads of concepts lodged in our mind constitute a ‘conceptual space’ of an enormously complex structure, where con- cepts are correlated by beliefs that are themselves made up of concepts and are as- sociated with emotions. The conceptual space, moreover, is perpetually in a state of dynamic evolution that is once again of a complex nature. A major component of the dynamic evolution is made up of incessant acts of inference, where an inference occurs essentially by means of a succession of correlations among concepts set up with beliefs and heuristics, the latter being beliefs of a special kind, namely, ones relatively free of emotional associations and possessed of a relatively greater degree of justification. Beliefs, along with heuristics, have been described as the ‘mind’s software’, and con- stitute important cognitive components of the self-linked psychological resources of an individual. The self is the psychological engine driving all our mental and physical activity, and is in a state of ceaseless dynamics resulting from one’s most intimate ex- periences of the world accumulating in the course of one’s journey through life. Many of our psychological resources are of a dual character, having both a self-linked and a shared character, the latter being held in common with larger groups of people and imbibed from cultural inputs. We focus on the privately held self-linked beliefs of an individual, since these are presumably of central relevance in making possible inductive inferences – ones in which there arises a fundamental need of adopting a choice or making a decision. Beliefs, decisions, and inferences, all have the common link to the self of an individual and, in this, are fundamentally analogous to free will, where all of these have an aspect of non-determinism inherent in them. Creativity involves a major restructuring of the conceptual space where a sustained inferential process eventually links remote conceptual domains, thereby opening up the possibility of a large number of new correlations between remote concepts by a cascading process. Since the process of inductive inference depends crucially on de- cisions at critical junctures of the inferential chain, it becomes necessary to examine the basic mechanism underlying the making of decisions. In the framework that we attempt to build up for the understanding of scientific creativity, this role of decision making in the inferential process assumes central relevance. With this background in place, we briefly sketch the affect theory of decisions. Affect is an innate system of response to perceptual inputs received either from the exter- nal world or from the internal physiological and psychological environment whereby a positive or negative valence gets associated with a perceptual input. Almost every sit- uation faced by an individual, even one experienced tacitly, i.e., without overt aware-ness, elicits an affective response from him, carrying a positive or negative valence that underlies all sorts of decision making, including ones carried out unconsciously in inferential processes. Referring to the process of inferential exploration of the conceptual space that gener- ates the possibility of correlations being established between remote conceptual do- mains, such exploration is guided and steered at every stage by the affect system, analogous to the way a complex computer program proceeds through junctures where the program ascertains whether specified conditions are met with by way of generating appropriate numerical values – for instance, the program takes different routes, depending on whether some particular numerical value turns out to be positive or negative. The valence generated by the affect system in the process of adoption of a choice plays a similar role which therefore is of crucial relevance in inferential processes, especially in the exploration of the conceptual space where remote domains need to be linked up – the affect system produces a response along a single value dimension, resembling a number with a sign and a magnitude. While the affect system plays a guiding role in the exploration of the conceptual space, the process of exploration itself consists of the establishment of correlations between concepts by means of beliefs and heuristics, the self-linked ones among the latter having a special role in making possible the inferential journey along alternative routes whenever the shared rules of inference become inadequate. A successful access to a remote conceptual domain, necessary for the creative solution of a standing problem or anomaly – one that could not be solved within the limited domain hitherto accessed – requires a phase of relatively slow cumulative search and then, at some stage, a rapid cascading process when a solution is in sight. Representing the conceptual space in the form of a complex network, the overall process can be likened to one of self-organized criticality commonly observed in the dynamical evolution of complex systems. In order that inferential access to remote domains may actually be possible, it is necessary that restrictions on the exploration process – necessary for setting the context in ordinary instances of inductive inference – be relaxed and a relatively free exploration in a larger conceptual terrain be made possible. This is achieved by the mind going into the default mode, where external constraints – ones imposed by shared beliefs and modes of exploration – are made inoperative. While explaining all these various aspects of the creative process, we underline the supremely important role that analogy plays in it. Broadly speaking, analogy is in the nature of a heuristic, establishing correlations between concepts. However, analo- gies are very special in that these are particularly effective in establishing correlations among remote concepts, since analogy works without regard to the contiguity of the concepts in the conceptual space. In establishing links between concepts, analogies have the power to light up entire terrains in the conceptual space when a rapid cas- cading of fresh correlations becomes possible. The creative process occurs within the mind of a single individual or of a few closely collaborating individuals, but is then continued by an entire epistemic community, eventually resulting in a conceptual revolution. Such conceptual revolutions make pos- sible the radical revision of scientific theories whereby the scope of an extant theory is broadened and a new theoretical framework makes its appearance. The emerging theory is characterized by a certain degree of incommensurability when compared with the earlier one – a feature that may appear strange at first sight. But incommen- surability does not mean incompatibility and the apparently contrary features of the relation between the successive theories may be traced to the multi-layered structureof the conceptual space where concepts are correlated not by means of single links but by multiple ones, thereby generating multiple layers of correlation, among which some are retained and some created afresh in a conceptual restructuring. We conclude with the observation that creativity occurs on all scales. Analogous to correlations being set up across domains in the conceptual space and new domains being generated, processes with similar features can occur within the confines of a domain where a new layer of inferential links may be generated, connecting up sub- domains. In this context, insight can be looked upon as an instance of creativity within the confines of a domain of a relatively limited extent. (shrink)

This is a philosophical question, not a scientific one. There are many examples of AI systems whose products appear to be creative and whose processing fits the criteria of combination, exploration, or transformation. (Arguably, that’s strictly true of transformation only if the system is linked to contingencies external to the program.) But could any of them or any conceivable computer-based system “really” be creative? That raises queries about whether “real” creativity must involve autonomy, intentionality, valuation, emotion, and consciousness. The (...) answer, in each case, is yes (sometimes with qualifications). However, these concepts are hugely controversial in themselves, quite apart from their relation to creativity—and/or to AI. It follows that no clear answer can be given to the title question. It remains open, until we have clear—and credible—accounts of all these matters. (shrink)

This is the second of a two-part essay on the history of debates concerning the creativity of natural selection, from Darwin through the evolutionary synthesis and up to the present. In the first part, I focussed on the mid-late nineteenth century to the early twentieth, with special emphasis on early Darwinism and its critics, the self-styled “mutationists.” The second part focuses on the evolutionary synthesis and some of its critics, especially the “neutralists” and “neo-mutationists.” Like Stephen Gould, I consider (...) the creativity of natural selection to be a key component of what has traditionally counted as “Darwinism.” I argue that the creativity of natural selection is best understood in terms of selection initiating evolutionary change, and selection directing evolutionary change, for example by creating the variation that it subsequently acts upon. I consider the respects in which both of these claims sound non-Darwinian, even though they have long been understood by supporters and critics alike to be virtually constitutive of Darwinism. (shrink)

The object of this research is the current cultural situation of post-truth, which is associated with the crisis of factuality and objectivity and is formed in the context of postmodern relativization of the substantive foundations of culture. The subject of this research is post-artistry as a recent cultural phenomenon that emerges in the era of post-truth and is caused by the virtualization, digitalization, and simulacrisation of various cultural forms. The aim of this research is to identify the essential characteristics and (...) mechanisms of post-truth functioning in various spheres of socio-cultural being, as well as to provide a conceptual basis for the phenomenon of post-artistry as a product of the era of post-truth and postmetaphysical philosophy. The research methodology includes comparative analysis, the dialectical method, system analysis, agent-based modeling, and phenomenological and hermeneutical approaches. The scientific novelty of this research lies in identifying the ways of conceptualizing the phenomenon of post-artistry, which include literal, transformational, postmodern, postcultural, voluntaristic, ideological, and digital interpretations, as well as in clarifying the meaning of the phenomena of pseudo-artistry, quasi-artistry, para-artistry, meta-artistry, creativity, neuro-artistry and form-artistry. The paper highlights and describes the «post-ontological» and «post-epistemological» problems of postmetaphysics, the first of which is associated with the reduction of objective reality to the hyperreality of simulacra, which is undergoing digitalization, which leads to a tripling of reality and the formation of postreality as a sphere of escapist existence of the subject, and the second is manifested in the processes of relativization, democratization, pluralization and egalitarization of truth, which are intensifying in the context of the information pandemic. The research also presents the specific features and mechanisms of post-truth in the socio-political, news, and advertising spheres. (shrink)

The relationship between creativity and artificial intelligence has been recently discussed in both the expert community and the broader public, with the discussion being driven not only by the challenges of practice or academic interest but also significantly influenced by societal anxieties. Large Language Models (LLMs), such as Chat GPT, Midjourney, DALL-E, have become central to the dialogue on human/machine creativity. Questions arise: Can AI be truly creative and if so, is AI creativity of the same nature (...) as human or non-human animal creativity? If we affirm both of these questions, what implications does that hold for our future selves? This contribution establishes meaningful links of personal and collective identity bridging the debates on AI creativity and human enhancement. (shrink)

Recent research has uncovered the dark side of creativity by finding that creative individuals are more likely to engage in unethical behavior. However, we argue that not all creative individuals make trouble. Using moral self-regulation theory as our overarching theoretical framework, we examine individuals’ moral identity as a boundary condition and moral disengagement as a mediating mechanism to explain when and how individual creativity is associated with workplace deviant behavior. We conducted two field studies using multi-source data to (...) test our hypotheses. In Study 1, the results indicated that creativity positively predicted moral disengagement for those low in moral identity. In Study 2 with multi-wave data, we replicated the finding that moral identity moderated the effect of creativity on moral disengagement in Study 1 and further revealed that moral disengagement mediated the interactive effects of creativity and moral identity on workplace deviant behavior. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed. (shrink)

This paper identifies, explores, and resolves a tension between two common ideas about creativity. The first is that a project is less creative insofar as it adheres to a formula of some kind. The second is that a project’s being carried out within a set of constraints does not necessarily make it less creative. The tension arises from the fact that formulae and constraints operate in the same manner. They reduce the set of options for an agent undertaking some (...) project. How could it be that reducing an agent’s options both does and does not make their project less creative? I resolve this tension by arguing that the first idea is false and should be replaced with the claim that a project is less creative insofar as the decisions that comprise it are dictated by a formula rather than being attributable to the agent. Finally, I employ a case study to demonstrate that there are ways in which formulae and constraints can diminish creativity and ways in which they can have no effect, or perhaps even enhance creativity. (shrink)

Emotional creativity (EC) is a pattern of cognitive abilities and personality traits related to originality and appropriateness in emotional experience. EC has been found to be related to various constructs across different fields of psychology during the past 30 years, but a comprehensive examination of previous research is still lacking. The goal of this review is to explore the reliability of use of the Emotional Creativity Inventory (ECI) across studies, to test gender differences and to compare levels of (...) EC in different countries. Thirty-five empirical studies focused on EC were retrieved and the coefficients required for the meta-analysis extracted. The meta-analysis revealed that women showed significantly higher EC than men (total N = 3,555). The same gender differences were also found when testing scores from three ECI subscales, i.e. emotional novelty, emotional preparedness and emotional effectiveness/authenticity. When comparing EC in 10 different countries (total N = 4,375), several cross-cultural differences were revealed. The Chinese sample showed a significantly lower average ECI total score than all the other countries. Based on the integration of results, the avenues for future research on EC and the breadth of influence of the concept of EC across different fields of psychology are discussed. Keywords: Emotional Creativity, Review, Meta-Analyses, Meta-Analysis, Definition, Emotional Creativity Inventory, ECI, Reliability, Gender Differences, Cross-cultural, Cross-culture, Personality Traits, NEO Personality Inventory, Big Five, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Openness to Experience, Introversion, Neuroticism, Emotions, Creativity, Cognition, Cognitive Abilities, Affect, Fantasy, Coping, Alexithymia, Anhedonia, Self-understanding, Motivation, Creativeness, Innovative Performance, Creative Ability, Artistic Creativity, Creative Thinking. MeSH Headings: Emotions, Creativity, Affect, Affective Symptoms, Gender, Sex, Gender Identity, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Transcultural Studies, Temperament, Extraversion, Neuroticism, Anhedonia, Creativeness, Cognition, Cognitive Function, Artistic Creativity, Creative Ability, Creative Thinking. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that culture plays a pivotal role for understanding Nietzsche’s own normative commitments. My argument develops as follows: Section 2 shows that Nietzsche advances an ideal of self-cultivation (Bildung) which is derived from the existential role of culture, elevating a peculiar concept of artistic creativity to ground his perfectionist understanding of value. Section 3 traces Nietzsche’s image of Goethe as exemplar of creative excellence. I contend that Nietzsche portrays Goethe as a male genius, rendering his (...) concept of self-cultivation entrenched in the cultural imagery of his time. The fin de siècle was obsessed with the image of genius as well as the relationship of creativity and gender. Moreover, as towering figure of German culture after the founding of the German Empire in 1871, Goethe was a frequent example of creative genius. Section 4 deepens the discussion of the role of gender in Nietzsche’s concept of creativity, exploring how the essentialist gender psychology of his mature works curtails the creative potential of women and explains his dismissal of feminism. (shrink)

Many theorists maintain that conscious intentional agency is a necessary condition of creativity. We argue that this requirement, which we call the Intentional Agency Condition (IAC), should be abandoned. We motivate this by highlighting the problems this criterion encounters in the face of recent advances in generative AI, which is ostensibly creative despite being incapable of intentional agency. We present two corpus analyses to illustrate the rapidly increasing tendency of people to predicate creativity to generative AI. In response (...) to this predicament, theorists of creativity have proposed a range of conflicting solutions, which we critically evaluate. We find that none of these satisfyingly resolves the initial predicament, and we therefore propose a novel approach. Our claim is that ascriptions of creativity are dependent on what we call creative ability. This solution explains why intentional agency is important for judgements of creativity, without being a necessary condition. Our approach thereby accommodates AI creativity without dismissing the intuition that perceived intentions are of key importance for ascriptions of creativity. (shrink)

Currie (2019) has introduced a novel account of creativity within the social epistemology of science. The account is intended to capture how conservatism can be detrimental to the health of inquiry within certain scientific communities, given the aims of research there. I argue that recent remarks by Rovelli (2018) put pressure on the applicability of the account. Altogether, it seems we do not yet well understand the relationship between creativity, conservatism, and the health of inquiry in science.

This paper examines the tension between creative destruction—an inherent feature of capitalist economies—and the ideal of autonomy. Creative destruction is vital for economic growth, but it undermines the conditions necessary for autonomy by disrupting individuals’ ability to plan their lives. This creates a dilemma: we must either abandon the ideal of autonomy or economic growth. The paper explores potential regulatory strategies to mitigate the impact of disruptive innovation on life plans, but argues these ultimately fail. It then proposes a novel (...) conception of autonomy consistent with capitalist creative destruction. With artificial intelligence poised to initiate unparalleled creative destruction, understanding this dilemma and potential solutions is crucial from an ethical perspective. The paper contends its revised conception of autonomy offers a path forward amidst transformative technological change. (shrink)

According to one of the rivals, “poets do not create from knowledge but on the basis of certain natural talents and guided by divine inspiration, just like seers and the singers of oracles.”1 There is “a form of possession and madness, caused by the muses, that seizes a tender and untouched soul and inspires and stimulates it so that it educates by praising the deeds of ancestors in songs and in every other mode of poetry. Whoever knocks on the door (...) of poetry without the madness of the muses trusting that technique alone will make him a whole poet does not reach his aim; he and his poetry of reason disappear before the poetry of the madman.”2 Even knowledge cannot arise in a purely rational way. In his seventh letter Plato explains how “from a long and dedicated pursuit of the subject and from close companionship, [understanding] suddenly, like fire being kindled by a leaping spark, is born in the soul and straightaway finds nourishment in itself.”3 Thus understanding or building a work of art contains an element that goes beyond skill, technical knowledge, and talent. A new force takes hold of the soul and directs it, toward theoretical insight in one case, toward artistic achievement in the other.The view adumbrated in these quotations is very popular today. Interestingly enough it seems to receive support form the most rigorous and most advanced parts of the sciences. This rigor, it is pointed out, is but a transitory stage in a process which has much in common with what Plato envisaged. Of course, it is necessary to make some changes: Plato’s knowledge was stable while scientific knowledge progresses. Plato assumed that outside forces—madness, divine inspiration—impinge on the soul while the moderns let the appropriate ideas, images, emotions arise from the individual soul itself. But there seem to exist many reasons to recommend a Platonism that has been modified in this way.In the following essay I shall try to show that the reasons that have been given are invalid and that the view itself—the view that culture needs individual creativity—is not only absurd but also dangerous. To make my criticism as concrete as possible I shall concentrate on e specific group of arguments in its favor. And to make it as clear as possible I shall use arguments trying to show the role of individual creativity in the sciences. If these clear and detailed arguments fail, then the rhetoric emerging from more foggy areas will altogether lose its force. 1. Plato, Apology of Socrates 22c. Translations, unless otherwise noted, are my own2. Plato, Phaedrus 245a.3. Plato, Epistles 341c, d. Paul Feyerabend studied singing and opera production in Vienna, history of theater and theatrical production at the Institute for the Methodological Reform of the German Theater in Weimar, and physics, astronomy, and philosophy in Vienna. He has lectured on aesthetics, the history of science, and philosophy in Austria, Germany, England, New Zealand, and the United States. At the moment he holds a joint appointment at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. His books include Against Method , Erkenntnis für freie Menschen , and Philosophical Papers . Forthcoming works are Farewell to Reason and Stereotypes of Reality. (shrink)

Despite the recent upsurge of interest in the investigation of creativity, the question of how to measure creativity is arguably underdiscussed. The aim of this paper is to address this gap, proposing a multidimensional account of creativity which identifies problem-solving, evaluation, and naivety as measurable features that are common among creative processes. The benefits that result from the adoption of this model are twofold: integrating discussions on creativity in various domains and offering the tools to assess (...) creativity across systems of different kinds. By situating creativity within this framework, I aim to contribute to a non-anthropocentric, more comprehensive understanding of the notion, and to debates on natural and artificial creativity. (shrink)