Imagination and Creative Thinking

This highly accessible discussion takes up imagination and creativity and explores in some detail the relationship between them.

Amy Kind (Author)

9781108977227, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 28 July 2022

75 pages
23 x 15.2 x 0.4 cm, 0.12 kg

This Element explores the nature of both imagination and creative thinking in an effort to understand the relation between them and also to understand their role in the vast array of activities in which they are typically implicated, from art, music, and literature to technology, medicine, and science. Focusing on the contemporary philosophical literature, it will take up several interrelated questions: What is imagination, and how does it fit into the cognitive architecture of the mind? What is creativity? Is imagination required for creativity? Is creativity required for imagination? Is a person simply born either imaginative or not (and likewise, either creative or not), or are imagination and creativity skills that can be cultivated? And finally, are imagination and creativity uniquely human capacities, or can they be had by nonbiological entities such as AI systems?

1. Introduction
2. What is imagination?
3. What is Creativity?
4. How are imagination and creativity related?
5. A Case Study: Imagination and Creativity in Machines
6. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Artificial intelligence [UYQ], Neurosciences [PSAN], Philosophy of science [PDA], Philosophy of mind [HPM], Philosophy [HP]