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Response to David Sless - Long Post -
Contents
(1) Response to Sunday's note
(2) Creativity research and reified constructs
(3) Modern creativity research and the cold war
(4) Facts out of context
(5) The rich history of creativity research
(6) Definition problems
(7) Creativity research in higher education and the professions
(8) Systematic arts of invention
(9) Unwarranted political inferences
Dear David,
Thanks for your response. I am glad that you want to see the thread
develop, and I am pleased that you look forward to my notes. I
respond to your three posts here. I am still working with my response
to the general thread.
Two parts of the thread have been relatively self-contained. The
first was the exchange between Dick Buchanan and John Feland. I was
about to post a short response to Dick and John when Susan Hagan and
Birgit Jevnaker wrote their contributions. They said much of what I
would have said. I felt no need to add anything. Instead, I am slowly
shaping a set of notes on the overall theme, together with short
comments on a few specific issues.
Your critique is other self-contained contribution. Here, I respond
to the specific issues you raised in your two posts to the list (1
and 2, below).
It may help to clarify our exchange first.
(1) Response to your note of Sunday
The note to you yesterday was not a personal attack. I made no attack
on your person. I argued against your position and the tone of your
post. Similarly, some of your statements today (3, below) seem to
have a different meaning than you feel they have.
In today's response, you claim that you did not write what you wrote
yesterday. You may not have intended the tone or meaning stated in
your words. I responded to your words yesterday rather than to the
intentions you state today.
This may clarify the distinction between words and intentions.
Your post (2) stated, "I will try and frame the issue as if I was
advising a student." My response was, "It is boorish to lecture a
group of distinguished colleagues as though you were their doctoral
advisor."
Now you write, "Not guilty. Note my use of 'as if' above, and your
use of 'imaginary' below."
"As if" and "as though" are equivalent expressions. You did write "as
though" ("as if") you were a doctoral advisor. Was it boorish to do
so? Perhaps not. Let each reader decide.
My response continued, "You have posted imaginary advice to doctoral
students before. It did not seem worth offering a response. When you
state that a thread on creativity and creativity research is
fruitless, you implicitly suggest the thread should end."
You respond, "Not guilty. 'fruitless' is your word, not mine."
You used the term "cul-de-sac." A cul de sac is a dead end or a blind
alley. To label a research direction as a cul de sac, a dead end, or
a blind alley is generally a way to say that it fruitless.
You ask, "Where did I 'call for any debate to close' EXPLICITLY."
You did not explicitly call for an end to the debate. It seemed to me
that the complaint of a "spiral of abstraction" and the offer to
throw "cold water" on it was a way to kill the conversation. Shifting
the tone and dynamics of conversation is one way to end a thread.
This has happened before. Rather than see this happen again, I
entered the debate to challenge your position and the way you put
your ideas forward.
You offer an elliptical challenge to the way I did this, writing,
"Ken, I only ever speak for myself. You, on the other hand" I spoke
for myself. If you think otherwise, please state in plain words who
you believe I spoke for.
Like a raised eyebrow, an elliptical expression suggests that you
know something the rest of us do not know. The archetypal
schoolmaster raises an eyebrow and clucks his tongue while murmuring,
"oh, dear." If you have something to say on this point, please
dispense with the three dots and state the case. Then we'll all know
what you seem to know.
If these three dots refer to my notes on list history, I was not
speaking for others. I was stating the history of the list.
In protesting my response, you write, "But I did not say that 'I see
this thread as fruitless or overly abstract'. On the contrary, and
for the record, I think the thread could benefit from some rigorous
abstraction. I think I used the term conceptual analysis, but no
matter."
If you do not see the thread as fruitless and overly abstract, you
choose poor words in complaining about a "cul de sac" and a "spiral
of abstraction."
You closed by quoting my statement that "the point is to examine the
topic in a serious and intelligent way."
You wrote, "Then why are we not doing so, instead of engaging in
personal attacks? Perhaps I am mistaken, but I thought I was
'examining the topic in a serious and intelligent way'."
There was no personal attack in my note. Rather, there was a strong
challenge to your position and the tone of your post.
Many of the contributions to this thread were serious and
intelligent. By asking why we are not examining the topic in a
serious and intelligent way, you restate the position that I
challenged. I assert that most of the contributors to this thread ARE
pursuing the thread in a serious and intelligent way.
Everyone acknowledges the challenges involved in addressing the
subject of creativity as a field of inquiry. Nevertheless, it is a
mistake to suggest that this field is a "cul de sac" typified by a
"spiral of abstraction." The specific claims in your two notes
involve historical and conceptual mistakes.
(2) Creativity research and reified constructs
Your first post claimed that the idea of creativity is a hypothetical
construct in psychology that has been reified. You simply assert this
claim. It is true that creativity as a research term is a construct.
All research terms are constructs. This does not mean that anyone has
reified the construct.
To make this claim neglects the literature. Some writers may have
reified the concept. Others use the concept or construct of
creativity in useful ways to characterize personalities, describe
processes and behaviors, and to frame interactions.
To argue the entire field and all the scholars in it have reified an
ill-founded construct is not so.
You have not read the literature fully enough. To mislabel an entire
field based on reading a few minor authors does not make much sense.
Rigorous abstraction and sound conceptual analysis begin by working
with the concepts used by the central scholars and researchers in a
field. You have not done this.
Your interesting paper on the concept of attitudes was valuable
because you carefully limited your discussion to a few specific
research streams and applications. You summarized the literature in
those fields fairly, and you drew nicely reasoned conclusions from a
fair statement of premises.
You have not treated the concept of creativity in the same fair way.
Admittedly, this is difficult. As I will show below, creativity
research involves a far wider range of fields. The term creativity is
used in very different ways among fields, and it is used in different
ways in different studies even within fields.
The term creativity is used as a concept and a construct, it is
applied to individual personality and social behavior, it is used in
conjunction with professes, and it often serves as an adjunct term
used in analyzing concepts and constructs other than creativity
itself. This broad scope of usage makes it difficult to get a grip on
the term. This ambiguity makes is difficult to assess the terms
"creativity" or "creativity research" in a general way.
The terms are used in many different ways across different fields and
disciplines. If you wish to undertake serious philosophical and
conceptual analysis, you must recognize just how often and how
carefully specific research programs define and delimit the term to
reach sound and useful conclusions.
As for reification, it is good to remember that no concept or
construct is a "real" in the sense of being a "real object." All
concepts and constructs, valid and invalid, useful and foolish,
remain concepts and constructs.
(3) Modern creativity research and the cold war
You argue that modern research on creativity began as an American
cold war response to Soviet scientific advances. This is partly true,
but this research stream only involved a minor fraction of the
research field.
Modern creativity research has many legitimate streams. Several
pre-date the cold war. Some are labeled with the term creativity.
Others form cognate streams under different labels, and some of these
cognate streams lead into creativity research.
Some American science and defense policy research programs supported
creativity research. It is a mistake to make too much of this fact in
the context of the huge research programs funded by the government of
the United States from the 1950s on. Far too many research programs
were supported by national science and defense research initiatives
to characterize most of them as a specific response to the cold war.
Quite the contrary, in size, vast extent, scale, and scope, this
funding resembled the huge research initiatives now being seen in
Europe, though on an even larger scale.
Some involved defense. Others involved national defense in the
broadest possible meaning. The premise was that progress in many of
the arts and sciences (including everything from logic and pure
mathematics to French literature and culture studies) made the nation
stronger. As a result, it was possible top support many different
kinds of projects and programs that had nothing to do with military
applications, politics, or the cold war.
When research funds are generous under one program and scanty under
another, scholars and scientists seeking funds often describe
generally interesting and serious research as specifically beneficial
to national science or defense. This did not make these research
programs a necessary adjunct to the cold war. In many cases, the
scholars were opposed to many aspects of cold war policy and politics.
Of those research programs that did somehow offer support for
national defense, most also had applications in civil life, commerce,
and general science. The broader social benefit of these programs far
surpassed their military applications. You and I are using the fruits
of one such series of research programs in our exchange. The
Internet, email, and many advances in computing began in American
defense research initiatives.
Did everything linked to national science or defense research serve
cold war military or political goals? No.
First, vast sums of money were lavished on scientific and scholarly
research without defense applications under the policy that general
progress in the sciences and arts were the best possible guarantor of
national strength. Even after the cold war, this remains a premise of
nation research in nearly all nations. The United States, Australia,
Norway, and Sweden all state their research policy goals in these
kinds of terms.
Second, many of the programs funded under the specific rubric of
defense were multiple programs with civilian and commercial
applications. Only weapons and military strategy research (admittedly
too large) had no other purpose.
Only a small portion of creativity research was linked to cold war
research initiatives. This is no reason to criticize the field as a
whole.
There may be reasons to criticize creativity research. The mistaken
notion that creativity research is a mistaken by-product of cold war
paranoia is not one of them.
(4) Facts out of context
In your post, you took the single fact that some creativity research
was supported under America's national science or defense initiatives
out of context and generalized it.
In doing so, you framed an argument that itself seems be some kind of
flashback to what you label "cold war paranoia."
If you take a single fact out of context, you transform its meaning.
Let us consider the fact that you sell research reports online rather
than making them available free. Some members in the Bush
administration advocate precisely this policy for research
institutions. They argue that end users should pay for the results of
all research. This includes research initially funded by public
grants or public agencies, as much of your research has been.
One might well ask why you sell reports on-line rather than giving
them away free as Internet technology permits you to do. Does this
single fact mean that you agree with the Bush view on privatization
of public services or the earlier Thatcher versions of the same
policy? Are we to assume that your decision to sell research reports
means that you support George Bush?
Facts taken out of context can be dangerous in the hands of a skilled
rhetor. They are even more dangerous in the hands of a sophist. I do
not argue that you intend to be a sophist. Rather, I suggest that
linking creativity research to cold war paranoia is a sophistical
kind of argument.
(5) The rich history of creativity research
If you look at the full history of creativity research, you see
another picture entirely. Most of this history involves different
fields of philosophy and psychology that have had nothing to do with
the cold war. Indeed, most of this work had little to do with art or
design.
Creativity research has to do with understanding the different
qualities and characteristics of what it is to be human. This
includes developing a rich, comprehensive concept of human being as a
category, and it in clues understanding a wide variety of human
processes.
Let us examine a few specific streams of creativity research.
One research stream links creativity research with humanistic
psychology in the work of such scholars, theorists, and therapists as
Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, gestalt therapy in the work of Virginia
Satir and Stewart Shapiro, or human potential in the work of Bill
Schutz. In other traditions of psychology, different kinds of
creativity research are found in the work of such thinkers as Ellen
Langer, Joyce McDougall, David Winnicott, or Susan Kavaler-Adler.
Scholars and professionals in many fields have worked with
creativity. In anthropology, one can name such thinkers as Gregory
Bateson and Mary Catherine Bateson. In management studies, we see
Tudor Rickards, Pierre Guillet de Monthoux, Warren Bennis, or Johan
Roos. Edgar Schein, Chris Argyris, Richard Daft, Gareth Morgan,
Antonio Strati, Karl Weick, and others in organization theory have
worked with creativity. Kay Redfield Jamison, Johan Kullberg, Fritz
Perls, and others have worked with creativity in psychiatry. Shozo
Hibino and Gerald Nadler have worked with creativity in engineering
and problem solving.
Many serious thinkers work with this topic in a rich variety of ways.
This list suggests a far wider and richer forum than any handful of
Americans pursuing a research agenda inspired by cold was paranoia.
Many of the best thinkers working on the topic of creativity are not
American. Outstanding work in this field has been done by Swedish,
Canadian, Norwegian, British, French, Japanese, Brazilian, Russian,
Italian, Chinese and German scholars, to designate but a few.
These scholars addressed creativity from such diverse fields as
anthropology, psychology, sociology, management studies, theology,
engineering, philosophy of science, history of science, studies in
science and technology, culture theory, literature, and dozens more.
Do you seriously believe that all of these scholars have reified a
mistaken construct? Do you believe that all are linked to cold war
paranoia?
To make the kind of sweeping statements you made on these issues, you
must neglected the history of the field.
(6) Definition problems
You note that there are definitional problems in some of the
discussions on creativity. You fail to note that there has also been
good work in defining central themes and issues.
One of the most serious problems is your failure to define what YOU
mean by creativity research. If you define your sense of the term, it
will readily become apparent that you are ignoring much of the work
to which others refer.
Several themes have appeared in this emerging thread. Some notes have
not been as clear or well defined as others. Let us take you comments
on he relationship of creativity research to education as an example.
If we hope to define the relationship of creativity research to
education, we must develop the constructs far more carefully than you
have done and limit them appropriately. It is easy to criticize work
in any field if we invent a construct that none of the scholars in
the field use. If you attribute your own concept to others and then
criticize it, you are commenting on your invention rather than on
their work.
The definitions we use and the limits we set must resemble the work
we analyze if our critique is to be meaningful. In your comments on
creativity research and education, you have proposed the caricature
of a hippie day care center rather than the educational work that
grew from creativity research.
You wrote, "Putting the matter at it's crudest, these romantics took
the view that children were like plants: you nurtured them and fed
them but you never tried to teach them how to produce flowers. That
could only emerge from their own inner being, unfettered by the
chains of social convention."
That is putting it crudely, indeed. If you read the scholars who
develop the pedagogical implications of creativity research, you will
find no such conclusions. Ellen Langer, Robert Sternberg, David Kolb,
or others who work in this stream develop clear pedagogical
implications anchored in experience and theory both. They do not take
the position that "children are like plants" and they do not advocate
the kind of pedagogical policies you imply.
My own direct involvement in education and creativity research took
place back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. There has been much
progress since then, but even then, nothing resembled the caricature
described in your post.
Quite the contrary, if you knew anything about early childhood
education or the other areas of education linked to creativity
research, you would see a rich emphasis on critical thinking,
mindfulness, and a balanced approach that builds on disciplined
inquiry. In addition, pedagogical practice emphasized helping each
child to develop in a natural and holistic way that builds on the
innate quality of each child's personality. There is nothing weird,
plant-like, or hippie-ish about that goal. This has always been the
goal of education.
It is easy to knock down a straw man. It is more difficult to
honestly report on the pedagogical and educational implications of
creativity research. It is difficult to describe how these issues
were applied in practice. Once you manage to do it, however, you will
find that the education philosophy you describe is not linked to
creativity research. It is linked to a group of fringe educators who
use the rubric of creativity to justify whatever it is they wish to
do. If you with to criticizing creativity research by serious
scholars, you must describe the work you claim to analyze rather than
criticizing something else while attributing it to them.
You characterize work on creativity as BOTH a misguided research
agenda stimulated by cold war paranoia AND an artifact of the flower
power philosophy. That is what I call a "deep and unresolved
contradiction."
Instead, you might address the research you discuss. As nearly as I
can see, you do not discuss the research at all. Instead, you present
a politicized misperception of the research.
(7) Creativity research in higher education and the professions
You also miss the boat on the application of creativity research to
higher education and the professions. It is well over a decade since
Ronald Finke, Thomas Warde, and Steven Smith first published their
pioneering work on creative cognition, addressing the theoretical
issues and applying them to such fields as product development,
human-computer interaction, architecture, education, or psychotherapy.
You are simply behind the times. The problem here is not that the
research is crude and poorly structured. The problem is your failure
to read and make proper use of the research.
(8) Systematic arts of invention
Your second post stated,
-snip-
At the heart of the 'creativity' thing there is a deep and unresolved
contradiction that won't go away. John Feland captured it well when
he asked:
"If systematic methods allow the systematic discovery of previously
unconnected ideas in a repeatable fashion, how then are these ideas
creative? That is to say, if anyone using these methods can achieve
the same level of performance, does this destroy the creativity by
making the previously difficult to perceive easy for everyone to
connect?"
-snip-
There is no deep and unresolved contradiction here. Part of this
involves unraveling a simple confusion of language, and part involves
category confusion.
Dick Buchanan wrote, "I've been puzzled why there has been no
discussion of the systematic art of invention that supports
'creativity' in design. Such an art has a long history in the West,
and there are modern expressions even in design."
John Feland responded.
Dick's note deserves two glosses.
The first gloss involves John's query on placing the term
"creativity" in quotation marks. The quotation marks do not set
creativity apart as an unworthy subject of research or inquiry.
Placing the term in quotation marks seemed to me to be a linguistic
device to indicate that Dick intended to indicate the term generally
as it has been used in the thread while declining to use it as it has
been used. As I saw it, Dick offered a proposition about the concept
while carefully declining to define the concept or its content.
This is a way to argue that systematic arts of invention may support
creativity while declining to prescribe or define the specific
content of creativity as a concept.
The second gloss is that the systematic arts of invention are both
systematic and inventive. They support creativity in many ways
without necessarily replacing any single step in the creative
process. Using these arts systematically also requires creativity.
These systematic arts include rhetoric in its broad sense as an art
of invention. They often include different methods of analysis. Logic
may also be used as a "systematic art of invention that supports
'creativity' in design."
More recently, we have seen the development of new systematic arts
that support creativity in design. These include such methods as
TRIZ, interactive problem solving, and value analysis. Some forms of
hermeneutics and many heuristic methods also support creativity in
the design process. This does not mean interpretive or critical
hermeneutics after the fact, but some of the several hermeneutic
research methods that offer aids to discovery and interpretation as
ancient rhetorical methods, recent mathematical heuristics, or modern
TRIZ methods may do.
Dick did not claim that these systematic arts ARE creativity. He
wrote about a "systematic art of invention that SUPPORTS 'creativity'
in design."
These systematic methods are best used in conjunction with a rich
spectrum of approaches. Louis Pasteur - an extraordinarily creative
scientist - used to say, "Chance favors the prepared mind."
I generally agreed with what I take as John's view, but I will add a
few thoughts that may shed light on these issues.
John writes, correctly, "There seems to be a constant tension
between the systematic approaches like TRIZ and the folks on the
traditional creative approaches."
One reason for this tension is the misunderstanding of these
different methods. Last fall, the list saw an exchange in which one
member of the list questioned value analysis (also known as value
engineering) and TRIZ as methods that support the creative design
process without ever stating the reason for this skepticism.
In querying the author on value analysis as a method that could
support creative design, it seemed to me finally that she knew
nothing about value analysis. She simply seemed to question it based
on its name.
I had known nothing about value analysis before then. Because of the
thread, I discovered that value analysis involves a rich series of
heuristic methods that can well support creative processes. Like
Polya's heuristics, or rhetoric, value analysis can well be used as a
"systematic art of invention that supports 'creativity' in design."
John is right about the tension between the advocates of various
positions. My view is that many of these disputes involve antagonists
who are voicing their ignorance rather than voicing a genuine
disagreement based on accurate information, personal experience, or
knowledge.
There is much to be learned from genuine disagreement on articulate,
well-stated positions. There is little to be learned in a dispute
where someone who knows nothing about a method such as value analysis
questions its heuristic usefulness based on the name alone. This
seems doubly strange given the fact that so many people who seem to
question heuristic techniques with names that suggest an engineering
background also speak often about heuristics as an aid to open
investigation.
John also writes, "I see these tools as enablers for those that have
yet to develop the awareness necessary to practice the ability that
Bezier called, 'detect unexpected relationships between facts that
look quite unconnected.'"
He continues, "These systematic methods assist the novice in making
these unexpected connections beyond what their current skills can
afford."
This seems to me partially true. Many of these methods help
experienced and skilled experts. In part, however, the development of
experience involves mastering and internalizing some of the heuristic
techniques that these methods render explicit.
In an earlier thread, I pointed to the work of Hadamard and Polya on
thee kinds of issues, and to several books on heuristics. It is clear
in studying the work of sophisticated expert mathematicians that they
use many of Polya' techniques. What distinguishes them from an
inexperienced user of Polya's book is that they have internalized
these techniques to the point that the book is rarely used.
A few years back, mathematician Andrew Wiles proved Fermat's Last
theorem. The theorem had gone unsolved for three and a half centuries
by the time Wiles proved it. The effort took him more than seven
years, and the roof ran over 200 pages.
What makes this adventure relevant to this thread is that it is
possible to learn about many of the efforts involved in his attempt.
Two separate but complementary books tell the story of Wiles's
research program, linking them to the history of mathematics,
physics, problem solving, and heuristics. On was written by
mathematician Amir D. Aczel (1997). Particle physicist turned science
writer Simon Singh wrote the other.
Each of these books demonstrates a history of mathematical
heuristics, and show how a contemporary mathematician used dozens of
techniques and methods to solve a problem that required him to work
across a rich array of mathematical topics and subfields.
What is interesting about both of these books is that you will
readily see Polya (1990 [1945]) at work in Wiles's approach.
One cannot imagine Andrew Wiles holed up in his study thumbing
through his well-marked copy of Polya. Instead, one sees how
mathematicians internalize a problem-solving process and a range of
heuristics. Through practice and experience, this array of heuristic
tools becomes tacit knowledge. It is embodied in the working process
of mathematical research. This knowledge is both tacit and explicit,
however. The art of understanding and teaching mathematical problem
solving requires internalizing skills that are embodied and enacted
in the mathematical proves. It also required the ability to
articulate and demonstrate these skills, identifying the issues and
processes along the way. Since this moves into a different range of
issue, I won't go into it further except to identify this kind of
heuristic approach as a "systematic art of invention that supports
'creativity'" in a specific field.
As Susan and Birgit both noted, even an expert can sometimes benefit
from a systematic approach.
Now it is time to unravel what you believe to be a deep and
unresolved contradiction.
John asked, "If systematic methods allow the systematic discovery of
previously unconnected ideas in a repeatable fashion, how then are
these ideas creative? That is to say, if anyone using these methods
can achieve the same level of performance, does this destroy the
creativity by making the previously difficult to perceive easy for
everyone to connect?"
The answer is that the systematic arts of invention are guidelines
rather than precise rules. They are processes, networks, or
collections of heuristics rather than exact mathematical algorithms.
The process can be repeated, but the outcome may not always be
repeatable. Because these processes apply to multiple ranges of
inquiry, including some that may be applied on different levels of
analysis, they require human judgment. The outcome is not always
predictable.
It is both reasonable and unreasonable to hope that "anyone using
these methods can achieve the same level of performance."
Within reason, it is possible for many different kinds of people to
achieve the same LEVEL of performance without achieving the SAME
performance.
It is also reasonable to recognize that the systematic arts of
invention depend on individual judgment and skill. Garry Kasparov
plays chess using the same algorithms that I use. The difference
between Mr. Kasparov and me is experience, skills, and judgment. Mr.
Kasparov can take on several dozen champions at once and hold his own
against the world's best chess-playing computers. It has been years
since I could even draw a regionally ranked player, and my Macintosh
can beat me every time.
Even now, the great struggles of artificial intelligence involve
finding useful sets of algorithms that enable machine to emulate
human performance. We have had powerful chess programs for many
years. These rely on good algorithms and brute force. During most of
those years, computers failed entirely at backgammon, a game
involving chance, and requiring judgment. In 1995, neural network
programming enabled a computer to learn within the domain of
backgammon. Today, computers can regularly challenge top-level human
players.
The systematic arts of invention have always been human arts. Dick
referred to these arts, as did Susan.
To discuss the "systematic arts of invention" in terms of any perfect
and comprehensively reproducible system might well involve reduction
to the absurd. That is not he case here.
No one has proposed the systematic arts of invention as a predictive
theory of creative answers. Your comment shows the misreading.
Within this range of issues, there are deep and interesting
questions. Getting to them involves establishing distinctions and
developing concepts that have not been part of this thread.
To go deeper into this question requires a deeper analysis and more
words than I have invested here. This response contains over seven
thousand and runs nearly twenty pages in twelve-point type. I have
given a fair and serious response to all the issues in your three
notes. I will not therefore develop this answer any further. It seems
to me that what you label a "deep and unresolved contradiction" is a
simple misunderstanding of what Dick wrote.
I believe that I understood John's question, and I think I have
answered it. Here, I would say that I have outlined an answer rather
than responding in full. I trust that my outline is sufficient for
the purposes of this thread.
(9) Unwarranted political inferences
You have repeatedly argued that it is "always a good idea to ask
whose interests are served by a particular research agenda."
Whose interests do YOU serve by continually proposing this question?
This question suggests a reductionist and implicitly political
critique. You make this political critique without directly stating
the premise.
What do you intend to suggest by repeating this question as often as
you do? Are you suggesting that everyone ELSE is serving some special
interest? Are you offering YOUR cold water cure in the disinterested
love of knowledge or are you simply pushing an interest of your own?
If you serve an interest in your research agenda and your
participation here, you have not disclosed it. If you serve specific
though unspecified interests, I would have to ask why your interest
should be any more convincing to the rest of us than those of anyone
else who has taken part here.
If you ARE serving an interest, why don't you disclose your interest?
If you are NOT serving an undisclosed interest, why do you assume
that everyone else is doing so?
There is another possibility, though, that transcends the doctrine of
special interests. Some of us believe - as Socrates did - that, "the
superlative thing is to know the explanation of everything, why it
comes to be, why it perishes, why it is."
There is such a thing as disinterested curiosity, that is, curiosity
motivated by passion for answers without any financial or political
interest at stake in the results of inquiry. This curiosity drives
many of the most interesting research programs.
Some research must clearly be interested rather than disinterested,
targeted, rather than general, but this is not true of all research.
This repeated accusation - and it is an implied accusation - is disingenuous.
In my view, people like Susan Hagan, John Feland, and Dick Buchanan
have spoken and written here in a spirit of passionate but
disinterested inquiry. What makes the first group interesting is the
fact that they engage these questions with an open mind and a fair
yet disciplined skepticism.
Disinterested inquiry also marks the comments of people like David
Durling, Birgit Jevnaker, and Chris Heape. What distinguishes this
second group is that they have read the literature of creativity
research on which they base their statements.
Many other contributors to this thread are also fair, skeptical, and
disinterested. Only you - and elsewhere, Rosan - ask, "whose
interests are served by a particular research agenda."
This kind of narrow political critique is, as you put it, "infected
with cold-war paranoia." I challenge this narrow critique, and I
challenge the views you have put forward in this thread.
If you are going to make the kinds of strong historical and political
statements you have made here, you must accept the possibility that
someone is going to challenge you where you are wrong.
You ended one note with the assertion "that most of us are wrong
about most of what we say, most of the time. This being no exception."
What I have done here is to point out the ways in which, as you note,
your post was no exception.
Ken Friedman
References
Aczel, Amir D. 1997. Fermat's Last Theorem. Unlocking the Secret of
an Ancient Mathematical Problem. London: Penguin Books.
Polya, G. 1990 [1945]. How to Solve It. A New Aspect of Mathematical
Method. London: Penguin Books.
Singh, Simon. 1997. Fermat's Last Theorem. The Story of a Riddle that
Confounded the World's Greatest Minds for 358 Years. London: Fourth
Estate.
(1) Post of Tue, 25 Feb 2003 23:27:16 +1100
-snip-
Rosan
Big problem with the idea of 'creativity'.
Like many hypothetical constructs in psychology, it was reified (made
into something real) in advance of any serious
philosophical/conceptual analysis. (For an example of another
hypothetical construct that became prematurely reified see my essay
on attitude:
http://www.communication.org.au/html/paper_2.html
It may seem absurd to us to today, but the modern research on
creativity in the 1960s and beyond was greatly stimulated by the
Russian launching of sputnik. According to some Americans infected
with cold-war paranoia, the USA lost this particular space race
because they didn't have enough creative people being produced by the
education system to feed the military industrial complex. Hence,
resources to do research on creativity were vital for the NATIONAL
INTEREST. As I've said before on this list, always a good idea to ask
whose interests are served by a particular research agenda.
The buzz word 'creativity' was quickly picked up by art and design
educationalists. It resonated well with the romantic tradition.
Followers of Herbert Read in the UK, Victor Lowenfeld in the USA, and
the devotees of the Bauhaus tradition from Europe all saw the term
'creativity' as somehow legitimising their particular somewhat
anti-intellectual stance. Putting the matter at it's crudest, these
romantics took the view that children were like plants: you nurtured
them and fed them but you never tried to teach them how to produce
flowers. That could only emerge from their own inner being,
unfettered by the chains of social convention.
So, long before anyone had provided an 'operational' definition of
creativity--any demonstrable link between theory and observation--it
seemed as though its existence, and the need to nurture it were
beyond dispute. Moreover, there was all that money researching 'it'
and measuring 'it'; its existence was beyond doubt!
But the rush to do empirical research and nail it down in the
classroom left a few rather simple conceptual issues undealt with.
These tend to dog all our current conversations. I doubt that this is
a particularly productive area for future research, unless it is in
someone's interest to fund it. Perhaps someone could write a proposal
suggesting that we need 'creativity' to outsmart the 'terrorists' and
Saddam.
-snip-
(2) Post of Sat, 1 Mar 2003 14:49:41 +1100
-snip-
Oh dear, I can see the seeds of another spiral of abstraction
growing, like the seed of a hurricane, with the potential to sweep
away all before it. Before it gathers momentum (fed by the energy
from academic hot air), here is some cold water.
At the heart of the 'creativity' thing there is a deep and unresolved
contradiction that won't go away. John Feland captured it well when
he asked:
> If systematic methods allow the systematic discovery of previously
> unconnected ideas in a repeatable fashion, how then are these ideas
> creative? That is to say, if anyone using these methods can achieve the
> same level of performance, does this destroy the creativity by making the
> previously difficult to perceive easy for everyone to connect?
Any scientific theory which offers an explanation of creativity
contains a reductio ad absurdum argument. If you have a theory, in
the scientific sense, it leads to predictions. Ultimately, it would
enable you to specify the conditions for 'creativity' to arise. In
principle, you should therefore be able to build a 'creative'
machine. This would, of course, obviate the necessity of having
designers and would render any 'new' theory of creativity a logical
impossibility. This does not eliminate critical hermeneutic theories
of creativity since these are always post factum. These types of
theories are interesting, if your an historian of ideas or a cultural
critic. But they are of limited value if you are interested in
practice--designing, learning how to design, teaching others to
design, or doing research to improve design practice. And this brings
me back to the current context.
As this is a list about PhDs in design, I will try and frame the
issue as if I was advising a student.
What you have to decide as a student is whether a particular idea
such as 'creativity' allows you to do useful and productive work in
your chosen field of inquiry. The idea might be interesting, even
fascinating, but can you use it to do productive research? My
suspicion (for all the above reasons and the ones I gave in my
original post) is that the idea of 'creativity' will lead you up a
cul de sac. Although, always bear in mind that most of us are wrong
about most of what we say, most of the time. This being no exception.
-snip-
(3) Post of Sun, 2 Mar 2003 12:06:30 +1100
-snip-
Ken and everyone else on the list
Ken tells us:
> This list is NOT "a list about PhDs in design." It is a list about
> doctoral education in design AMONG OTHER TOPICS.
Mea culpa. I will take this into account in future.
> You write, "As this is a list about PhDs in design, I will try and
> frame the issue as if I was advising a student."
>
> You are not advising students here. You are a member of a forum in
> which the majority of list members are scholars, researchers, and
> professors at a wide range of universities, design schools,
> professional schools, and research institutions.
Mea culpa. Again
>
> It is boorish to lecture a group of distinguished colleagues as
> though you were their doctoral advisor.
Not guilty. Note my use of 'as if' above, and your use of 'imaginary' below.
> You have posted imaginary advice to doctoral students before. It did
> not seem worth offering a response. When you state that a thread on
> creativity and creativity research is fruitless, you implicitly
> suggest the thread should end. This time, I want to respond.
Not guilty. 'fruitless' is your word, not mine. I make no 'implicit'
suggestions. You make unwarranted assumptions
> PhD-Design has a few, simple ground rules. Any member is free to
> introduce any topic that he or she deems appropriate. Every member is
> free to debate at great length or short, over a few hours or several
> months. Anyone may challenge, respond, or argue. No one is permitted
> to curtail the debate or call for any debate to close.
Not guilty. Where did I 'call for any debate to close' EXPLICITLY.
>
> This is not the first time you have suggested that a thread be
> closed. This time, I want to state explicitly that this is your view.
> Others do not share your view. If you feel that the thread is too
> abstract, difficult, or problematic, don't participate.
Not guilty. I have expressed a view saying that I didn't think
particular threads were going anywhere productive. But I have never
'suggested that a thread be closed' That is a silly idea. I have no
such power, even of suggestion.
>
> If you want to say, "I believe this is a silly debate on an
> impossible topic," go ahead and say why.
I thought what I said was that I believed there were some deep and
unresolved contradictions in theories of creativity. I also outlined
the arguments why I think this is the case. That is far from
suggesting 'a silly debate on an impossible topic'.
> Do not suggest that others
> stop posting on a topic of interest. The last time you did this, it
> seems to me that your complaints about the "spiral of abstraction"
> killed a perfectly viable discussion. I should have taken a stronger
> stand. This time, I will. You have the right to speak for yourself in
> stating that you see this thread as fruitless or overly abstract.
> Other subscribers may not share your view.
Ken, I only ever speak for myself. You, on the other hand But I did
not say that 'I see this thread as fruitless or overly abstract'. On
the contrary, and for the record, I think the thread could benefit
from some rigorous abstraction. I think I used the term conceptual
analysis, but no matter.
>
> This thread began when David Durling, Rosan Chow, Klaus Krippendorff,
> and others chose to develop it. The notes of the past few days from
> Dick Buchanan, John Feland, Susan Hagan, and Birgit Jevnaker have
> been profound and interesting. The point is not to reach agreement or
> a conclusion. Sometimes people want to know something simply because
> they are curious, eager, or passionate about the questions they ask.
> The point is to examine the topic in a serious and intelligent way.
Then why are we not doing so, instead of engaging in personal
attacks? Perhaps I am mistaken, but I thought I was 'examining the
topic in a serious and intelligent way'.
>
> Before long, I will offer a few thoughts on this intriguing and
> useful thread.
I look forward to them.
> I value the contributions to this thread. I hope that
> those who have taken the time to share their thoughts will continue.
So do I.
David
-snip-
--
Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
Department of Leadership and Organization
Norwegian School of Management
Visiting Professor
Advanced Research Institute
School of Art and Design
Staffordshire University
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