Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: I argue for an account of creativity that unifies creative achievements in the arts, sciences, and other domains and identifies its characteristic value. This account draws upon case studies of creative work in both the arts and sciences to identify creativity as a kind of successful exploration. I argue that if creativity is properly understood in this way, then it is fundamentally a property of processes, something only agents can achieve, something that comes in degrees, subjectively novel, and non-formulaic. As I develop the account, I show how it avoids challenges faced by other accounts of creativity, especially concerning creativity's value. Hills and Bird have together argued that creativity is not necessarily valuable. My account challenges this view. If I am right that creativity is a kind of successful exploration, then creativity does have a characteristic value, specifically epistemic value.
Source: The Philosophical Quarterly
DOI: 10.1093/pq/pqae075
Author: Lindsay Brainard
Institution: University of Alabama at Birmingham
Language: English
Topic: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Art
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4401976603