Creativity and Philosophy

Abstract

‘Heuristics for philosophical creativity’ may sound like an oxymoron. Heuristics-tools or rules of thumb for problem-solving, forming judgments, and for cognitively challenging activities more generally-may seem antithetical to a romantic vision of the brilliant philosopher sitting with furrowed brow, peering into the realm of Timeless Truths, and then suddenly struck by a lightning bolt of insight, a ‘eureka!’ moment. The genius, doubtless tormented, perhaps cackling like Mozart in Amadeus, has no use for such plodding tools; nor does a lesser but nonetheless highly creative mortal-or so one may think. You cannot summon the muses; they summon you, says a sceptical voice. Less romantically, Kant and others have argued that genius, and by extension general creativity, is innate, and so cannot be learned or taught. 2 Yet, heuristics can be learned and taught, often easily-indeed, that is typically their point. Moreover, philosophy may seem to be especially unsuitable for the deployment of heuristics. After all, it is supposed to be the love of wisdom; it strives for profound truths and deep understanding. But heuristics may be thought to be superficial by their very nature. “There are no short-cuts to sophia,” our sceptic adds.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 67 citations exist upstream.