Potential Originality and Effectiveness: The Dynamic Definition of Creativity

Abstract

Given the central role of creativity in the future post-information society, a call for a pragmatist approach to the study of creativity is advocated, that brings as a consequence the recognition of the dynamic nature of this phenomenon. At the foundation of the proposed new theoretical framework lies the definition of creativity itself, which is turned from static to dynamic through the introduction of the concept of potential originality and effectiveness. Starting from this central definition, and through the introduction of the auxiliary definitions for focus area, creativity goal, creative agent, creative potential of an agent, creative potential of an environment, creative process, product of a creative process, creativity potential of a process, representation of the product of a creative process, and estimator, we arrive at the definitions of creative achievement and creative inconclusiveness. Although both aspects are key in the creative process, creative inconclusiveness was not part of previous definitions, but it is argued that its role is fundamental for effective education in creativity. The new definitions are shown to have full backward compatibility with the extant corpus of scientific research in creativity, as well as forward effectiveness in suggesting novel investigation approaches to support the consideration of new theoretical hypotheses.