Berys GautMatthew Kieran - Creativity and Philosophy

Creativity and Philosophy

Creativity matters. We want people to be more creative and admire those who are. Yet creativity is deeply puzzling. Just what is it to be creative? Why is it valuable? Who or what can be creative and how?

Creativity and Philosophy is an outstanding collection of specially commissioned chapters by leading philosophers who explore these problems and many more. It provides a comprehensive and creative picture of creativity, including the following themes:

creativity as a virtue, imagination, epistemic virtue, moral virtue and personal vice;

creativity with and without value, the definition of creativity, creative failures and suffering;

creativity in nature, divine creativity and human agency;

naturalistic explanations of creativity and the extended mind;

creativity in philosophy, mathematics and logic, and the role of heuristics;

creativity in art, morality and politics;

individual and group creativity.

A major feature of the collection is that it explores creativity not only from the perspective of art and aesthetics, but also from a variety of philosophical disciplines, including epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophical psychology, philosophy of science, political philosophy and ethics.

The volume is essential reading for anyone fascinated by creativity, whether their interests lie in philosophy, music, art and visual studies, literature, psychology, neuroscience, management or education, or they are simply intent on learning more about this vital human trait.

Berys Gaut is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews, UK.

Matthew Kieran is Professor of Philosophy and the Arts at the University of Leeds, UK.

Creativity and Philosophy

Edited by Berys Gaut and Matthew Kieran

First published 2018

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2018 selection and editorial matter, Berys Gaut and Matthew Kieran; individual chapters, the contributors

The right of Berys Gaut and Matthew Kieran to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Gaut, Berys Nigel, editor.

Title: Creativity and philosophy / edited by Berys Gaut and Matthew Kieran.

Description: 1 [edition]. | New York: Routledge, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017043027 | ISBN 9781138827677 (hardback: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138827684 (pbk.: alk. paper) |

ISBN 9781351199797 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Creative ability. | Philosophy.

Classification: LCC B105.C74 C76 2018 | DDC 128/.3dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017043027

ISBN: 978-1-138-82767-7 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-82768-4 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-351-19979-7 (ebk)

Typeset in Garamond and Gillsans

by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

Contents

Berys Gaut and Matthew Kieran

Robert Audi

Jason Baehr

Katherine Hawley

Matthew Kieran

Alison Hills and Alexander Bird

Paisley Livingston

Berys Gaut

Charles Taliaferro and Meredith Varie

Jennifer Hawkins

Margaret A. Boden

Elliot Samuel Paul and Dustin Stokes

Maria Kronfeldner

Michael Wheeler

Stephen Davies

Michael Beaney

Alan Hjek

Christian Helmut Wenzel

James Grant

Tim Mulgan

Matthew Noah Smith

Robert Audi writes, teaches, and lectures in moral and political philosophy, epistemology, action theory, and philosophy of religion. His books include The Architecture of Reason (OUP, 2001), The Good in the Right: A Theory of Intuition and Intrinsic Value (Princeton, 2004), Practical Reasoning and Ethical Decision (Routledge, 2006), and Moral Perception (Princeton 2013). He is a past president of the American Philosophical Association and currently John A. OBrien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.

Jason Baehr is Professor of Philosophy at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He has written extensively in the area of virtue epistemology. He is author of The Inquiring Mind (Oxford, 2011) and editor of Intellectual Virtues and Education: Essays in Applied Virtue Epistemology (Routledge, 2016).

Michael Beaney is Professor of the History of Analytic Philosophy at the Humboldt University in Berlin and Professor of Philosophy at Kings College London. He is the author of Frege: Making Sense (1996), Imagination and Creativity (2005), and Analytic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2017), and edits the British Journal for the History of Philosophy.

Alexander Bird is Peter Sowerby Professor of Philosophy and Medicine at the Kings College London. His research is in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of science and medicine. Among other things, he is currently interested in the relationship between the generation and the evaluation of scientific theories.

Margaret A. Boden OBE ScD FBA is Research Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Sussex, where she helped develop the worlds first academic programme in AI and cognitive science. She holds degrees in medical sciences, philosophy, and psychology (as well as a Cambridge ScD, Biology), and integrates these disciplines in her research.

Stephen Davies teaches at the University of Auckland. His books include The Philosophy of Art (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016, second edition), The Artful Species: Aesthetics, Art, and Evolution (OUP, 2012), Musical Understandings (OUP, 2011), and Philosophical Perspectives on Art (OUP, 2007).

Berys Gaut is Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews. He is the author of Art, Emotion and Ethics (OUP, 2007) and A Philosophy of Cinematic Art (CUP, 2010), as well as numerous articles on creativity, aesthetics, the philosophy of film and ethics. He is co-editor of The Creation of Art (CUP, 2003) and is currently writing a monograph on the philosophy of creativity.

James Grant is the William Kneale and Le Rossignol-Clarendon Fellow in Philosophy at Exeter College, University of Oxford. His first book, The Critical Imagination (OUP, 2013), is a study of the role of imaginativeness in art criticism. His current work focuses on value in art.

Alan Hjek received his Ph.D. in philosophy at Princeton University. He has been Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University since 2005. His research interests include the philosophical foundations of probability and decision theory, formal epistemology, philosophical logic, and philosophical methodology.

Jennifer Hawkins is Associate Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy and a Faculty Affiliate of the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, and History of Medicine, at Duke University. She is currently working on a book about well-being.