Creativity is typically defined as a disposition to produce valuable ideas. We argue that this is a mistake and defend a new definition of creativity in terms of the imagination. It follows that creativity has instrumental value at most and then only in the right circumstances. We consider the role of tradition and judgment in worthwhile creativity and argue that there is frequently a tension between greater creativity and the production of value.

Imagination is necessary for scientific practice, yet there are no in vivo sociological studies on the ways that imagination is taught, thought of, or evaluated by scientists. This article begins to remedy this by presenting the results of a qualitative study performed on two systems biology laboratories. I found that the more advanced a participant was in their scientific career, the more they valued imagination. Further, positive attitudes toward imagination were primarily due to the perceived role of imagination in problem-solving. (...) But not all problem-solving episodes involved clear appeals to imagination, only maximally specific problems did. This pattern is explained by the presence of an implicit norm governing imagination use in the two labs: only use imagination on maximally specific problems, and only when all other available methods have failed. This norm was confirmed by the participants, and I argue that it has epistemological reasons in its favour. I also found that its strength varies inversely with career stage, such that more advanced scientists do (and should) occasionally bring their imaginations to bear on more general problems. A story about scientific pedagogy explains the trend away from (and back to) imagination over the course of a scientific career. Finally, some positive recommendations are given for a more imagination-friendly scientific pedagogy. (shrink)

While discussions of the imagination have been limited in philosophy of science, this is beginning to change. In recent years, a vast literature on imagination in science has emerged. This paper surveys the current field, including the changing attitudes towards the scientific imagination, the fiction view of models, how the imagination can lead to knowledge and understanding, and the value of different types of imagination. It ends with a discussion of the gaps in the current literature, indicating avenues for future (...) research. (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.

Historically left to the margins, the topics of imagination and creativity have gained prominence in philosophy of science, challenging the once dominant distinction between ‘context of discovery’ and ‘context of justification’. The aim of this chapter is to explore imagination and creativity starting from issues within contemporary philosophy of science, making connections to these topics in other domains along the way. It discusses the recent literature on the role of imagination in models and thought experiments, and their comparison with fictions. (...) It then turns to the importance of constraints on imaginings in the scientific domain, as well as whether constraints can hinder creativity. The second part of the paper focuses on the social dimensions of science. It considers imagination and creativity of scientific communities, asks whether the institution of science promotes creativity (and whether we want it to) or if it encourages conservativeness, and ends with a reflection on the politics of imagination and creativity in science. (shrink)

In social and political theory, the imagination is often used in accounting both for creativity, innovation, and change and for sociopolitical stagnation and the inability to promote innovation and change. To what extent, however, can we attribute such seemingly contradictory outcomes to the same mental faculty? To address this question, this paper develops a comprehensive account of the political imagination, one that explains the various roles played by imagination in politics and thus accounts for the promises and limits of the (...) political imagination. This conceptualization of the political imagination allows us to account for the simultaneous presence of its seemingly contradictory roles—such as promoting stability and order on the one hand while generating creativity and critical innovation on the other. (shrink)

Thought experiments (TEs) are important tools in science, used to both undermine and support theories, and communicate and explain complex phenomena. Their interest within philosophy of science has been dominated by a narrow question: How do TEs increase knowledge? My aim is to push beyond this to consider their broader value in scientific practice. I do this through an investigation into the scientific imagination. Part one explores questions regarding TEs as “experiments in the imagination” via a debate concerning the epistemic (...) status of computer simulations in science. I outline how, against Hacking, TEs also have “a life of their own” and I argue against accounts that privilege experiments over simulations (and by extension TEs) in light of their capacity to surprise in a productive way. Part two develops a pluralist account of the nature of the imagination in science. At its core, my view is that when we attend to a number of examples of TEs and consider the context in which they are used, we see that TEs engage a variety of our imaginative capacities. Existing monistic views fail to recognise the richness of the imagination and its potential in science. Part three looks to the “beauty” of TEs which is currently overlooked in the aesthetics of science literature. I put forward a new account that demonstrates the epistemic value of aesthetic features in science by showing how an appropriate fit between form and content enhances the usability of a TE, and its effectiveness as a prompt for our imagination. This also enables a more nuanced take on the proposed similarities between TEs and literary fictions. In the concluding chapter, I outline ways in which the core features of my account can be extended beyond TEs to illuminate the significance of the imagination and aesthetic values in other areas of science. (shrink)

H.-J. Glock has made important contributions to discussions of rationality, reasons, and rules. This chapter addresses four conceptions of rationality that Glock identifies. One of these conceptions of rationality is that rationality consists in responsiveness to reasons. This chapter goes on to consider the idea that reasons became prominent in normative ethics because of their usefulness in articulating moral pluralism. The final section of the chapter connects reasons and rules and contends that both are ineliminable.

In "De l’Allemagne", Mme de Staël develops a sophisticated philosophical psychology that centers not on reason, but imagination. She does this by bringing French Enlightenment philosophy, particularly Rousseau and Diderot, into dialogue with German thinkers, including Kant and Herder. For Mme de Staël, imagination transcends the epistemic limits of sensibility and reason by incorporating sentiment.

The third issue of the Journal for the Philosophy of Language, Mind and the Arts is centered on a series of questions related to the nature of images. What properties characterize them? Do they exist also in our minds? What relationship do they have with phenomena such as perception, memory, language and interpretation? The authors participating in this issue have been asked to answer these and other questions starting from and in dialogue with the two philosophical perspectives that have most (...) enriched the study of our object of research since the second half of the twentieth century: analytical philosophy and visual culture studies. The first four essays address problems related to ontology (Didi-Huberman, Prinz, Bantinaki, Manzotti). In their pages the question will be asked not only about the nature of images but also about what it means for an image to represent an object or an action realistically. The second part contains discussions related to the topics of perception, appreciation and creation of pictures (Ferretti; Gavaler, Goldberg; Pigoni, Coraci, Carlenzi). The third section goes through the problems related to the very concept of representing by images (Biggs; Weichert; Derby). The last section of the issue is devoted to two cases in which images are used not so much and not only to represent something, but also to convey ethical-political values (Fasnacht; Olesiejuk). (shrink)

This work was presented at the Research Center for Philosophy of Science of the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (Iran) – in Aug 2020. --- -/- Briefly, in the first section of this Persian book, first of all, I (Hereafter: the writer) have presented generalities of Aesthetics and an interpretation of aesthetic universality (Hereafter: φ) and it is argued that each definition of art has to admit φ and this is a Kantian, minimalist, and subjective perspective view (some others would incline (...) objective interpretation of φ, but it is beyond the purpose of this work). What’s more, this view could be applied to all definitions of art e.g. Functionalism, Conventionalism, or Hybrid Theories. Additionally, the writer has replied to some objections, those would promote definitions of art without φ, it seems that they could not be successful to refuse φ, since it appears that φ is a premise in every aesthetic judgment. Next, in another section, the writer has written some primary notes on creativity, those have come from contemporary literature of it, and it is argued that there is a relation between creativity and φ. It is also claimed that the relation is the same φ by the creative processes, creative products, and creative persons, both scientifically and philosophically; and so, the relation represents that φ is true. Besides that, the writer has presented some potential objections to the writer’s aspect of the relation and the writer has also replied to those objections. --- -/- In the next section of the book, the writer has applied the φ by creativity to the philosophy of animal-made art, the writer revolutionarily illustrates that first of all, the normativity of the philosophy of animal-made art is prior to the descriptive one. Second of all, φ is principally the criterion to know that animal-made art is impossible. The writer’s position recognizes those other works of animal aesthetics, which means aesthetics of all of the non-human creatures in the earth or cosmos as a new part of environmental aesthetics, is the marginally second order of animal aesthetics. It is owing to the fact that first of all, the question, of whether animal-made art is possible or not, is normative. Second of all, if one does not concern normativity of the question, then one could not get the answer to the nature of it. Next, one could not distinguish between on the one side, the pleasure of drinking water when one’s thirst may cause death, on the other side, the one’s pleasure of listening to music when there is no urgent necessity of it. The fourth argument is that one needs to identify the normativity of animal-made art because one could generalize aesthetic judgments if one sets φ as the basis of it, and then, one identifies that φ is one of the most fundamental bases in Aesthetics. --- -/- The main section of this book is that the writer’s argument -Animal-Made Art Impossibility Argument- is in favor of the impossibility of animal-made art i.e. Functionalist, Conventionalist, or Hybrid Theories of the definitions of animal-made art, also the writer has replied to some possible ideas and objections to the argument. --- -/- Pouya Lotfi Yazdi --- Iran | June 2022. (shrink)

The main purpose of this dissertation is to examine critically and discuss the role of imagination in science and religion, with particular emphasis on its possible epistemic, creative, and meaning-making functions. In order to answer my research questions, I apply theories and concepts from contemporary philosophy of mind on scientific and religious practices. This framework allows me to explore the mental state of imagination, not as an isolated phenomenon but, rather, as one of many mental states that co-exist and interplay (...) in our cogntive architecture. Based on the philosophical discourse of philosophy of mind, four types of imagination are indentified and conceptualized: sensory, propositional, experiential, and creative imagination. These categories are then employed on five phenomena that can be found in scientific and religious environments: metaphors, models, thought experiments, aspect perception, and - in the religious case - rituals. In relation to the concept of religious "seeing" I consider how imaginings may influence visionary experiences and visualization, and compare these phenomena with cases of scientific visualization and eureka experiences. In regard to scientific and religious models, a distinction is made between, on the one hand, two notions of truth and, on the other hand, truth-independent meaning-making. In light of these categories, I differentiate between, and critically discuss, the use of imagination in doxastic, non-doxastic and fictionalist accounts. In light of this investigation, I formulate and defend the position of interactivism, which acknowledges a constant interplay between different attitudes and mental states. In my examination of rituals and scientific and religious thought experiments, special attention is given to the mental capacity to recreate the experiences that are entailed in an imagined scenario. At the end of the investigation, I consider the possible impact that my study might have on how we view science and religion as well as the dialogue bewteen these two fields. (shrink)