Notes Introduction: Our Concept of Change 1 . The terms constructivist and constructionist may be differentiated within social research, with constructivist tending to be applied more to individual psycho- logical constructions of meaning and constructionist to social phenomena. There are, however, more or less socially oriented constructivists. Since this analysis aims at bridging individualistic and social views, the term construc- tivist will be used here with broad social meaning. In other words, the indi- vidual-oriented psychological theory of Jean Piaget (1977/1995), the socially oriented psychological theory of Lev Vygotsky (1978), and the social discur- sive philosophy of Michel Foucault (1969/1972) will be treated as different positions within constructivist theory. Then the work will be to consider how differences in such views can inform one another. The field of psychology has already linked the concepts of Piaget and Vygotsky without ignoring their differences. This analysis broadens the scope to include philosophy. 2 . Many of those psychologists, however, would readily admit the fundamental point on which Goodman built: perception and conception are never sepa- rate. Today, psychologists may speak of sensations without concepts, but the issue of perception includes analysis of the relation of sensation to preexisting concepts, that is, what is known (Cohen, 2003; Pastorino & Doyle-Portillo, 2011, pp. 115–16). 3 . Karl Mannheim famously argued for a ‘general form of the total conception of ideology’ (1929/1954, pp. 68–69), going beyond particular sets of unfounded or unexamined ideas and beyond Marxist analyses of group consciousness. In Mannheim’s view everyone’s ideology, including that of the researcher, should be considered subject for analysis. He contended that individuals contrib- uted to ideology with new ideas and thinking within their historical ideolo- gies, but no one person bore the system of ideas, which was itself constantly changing. The present analysis is not designed specifically to justify or exem- plify Mannheim’s view but does align with his concept of ideology in general. More recently, Michael Freeden (2003) has described a view of ideology as necessary for functioning in actual political communities where collective decisions are made. That view would be in keeping with the overall cogni- tive framework of many of the theories of creativity that will be discussed in coming chapters. Freeden has also emphasized the generative and changing nature of ideological structures in keeping with the current analysis. 1 Creativity at Large: Functions and Controversies 1 . Specific policy issues addressed included changes in tax policies to promote development of new energy technologies, overall corporate investment, and pursuit of higher education; investment in infrastructure; simplification and revision of the overall tax code; refinement of the recently passed healthcare 227 228 Notes law; streamlining of federal bureaucracy; and a freeze on domestic spending to lower the national budget deficit. 2 . The Republican response was given by Representative Paul Ryan (2011) of Wisconsin, who indirectly addressed the president’s theme by asserting that the economic crisis had come from poor decisions by leaders in Washington and on Wall Street (the financial sector) not from ‘our ideals of free enter- prise’. Ryan did not challenge the general importance of entrepreneurial inno- vation, however. Representative Michelle Bachman (2011), Republican from Minnesota, gave a response on behalf of the Tea Party. In keeping with the President’s description of the American character, both Ryan and Bachman asserted their belief in American ‘exceptionalism’. 3 . The status of change is an old philosophical controversy featuring such lumi- naries as Plato and Heraclitus. Plato (trans. 1947) famously juxtaposed the apparent importance of change to underlying ideals that give form to the world. Heraclitus is generally known for taking the opposite view, empha- sizing the importance of flux, seeing the core aspect of being as fire with its constant transformative properties (Honderich, 1995). Plato quoted, and may have misquoted, Heraclitus as claiming that the same person cannot step into the same river twice, since both are constantly changing. Some current schol- arship has emphasized Heraclitus’ (trans. 2001) focus on structures within the constant state of flux, particularly unity of opposites (Honderich, 1995). For example, Graham (2011) has argued that the most likely actual fragment from Heraclitus in relation to the famous river ‘quote’ actually refers to the fact that rivers are stable entities whose primary characteristic is change (flow), similar to President Obama’s description of the traditionally understood American professional identity as one of an instigator of innovation. 4 . Darwin was also well aware of shortcomings of his theory. Although he might not have been convinced by Bergson’s view, Darwin was aware that natural selection addressed a more limited and specific problem than the definition of life (Gruber, 1981). 5 . Bergson’s concept of vital impulse in relation to materiality has been compared to Einstein’s theories of interchangeability of matter and energy (Pope, 2005), and Bergson’s influence has been noted by a wide range of thinkers, including the American pragmatists William James and John Dewey, French existential- ists Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and the postmodern theorist Gilles Deleuze (Lawlor & Moulard-Leonard, 2013; Pope, 2005). 6 . This topic returns to Hegel. His dialectical view of mind wove together and dramatically promoted the concepts of development and progress. The vision of ongoing dialectical change followed an inevitable teleological path to improvement, beginning in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind (1807/1977) with sensation and perception and ending in ‘Absolute Spirit’. 7 . For discussion of the overman in relation to the true self and an argument for not using superman as the translation of übermensch, see Kaufman (1975). For analysis of the relation of Nietzsche’s philosophy to the concept of creativity, see Mason (2003). 8 . Creativity literature uses the terms ethics and morality in similar and some- times interchangeable ways. Since the concept of creativity has largely focused on individuals but included acts that require social recognition, differences in socially defined ethics and personal morality have tended to overlap. Notes 229 2 Ideation: The ‘Box’ and Its Discontents 1 . In psychodynamic theory the free association was occurring within the transference of attitudes and beliefs associated with earlier authority figures to the analyst. 2 . Freud analyzed a number of artists and their works, including da Vinci, Dostoyevsky and Michelangelo but claimed that he was not addressing the sources of creativity. In his analysis of Dostoyevsky, Freud famously wrote, ‘Before the problem of the creative artist analysis must, alas, lay down its arms’ (1928/1963, p. 274). This defensive caveat is only to be partially believed, however. In reality, he did posit theories of both the source and motivation for creative work. Indeed, his concerns in these areas went beyond the level of detail of most current theories of creativity. Freud did not, however, concern himself with the mechanisms or skills by which the expressed wish achieves the expressive quality of a work of art. His work is included here, introducing other ideation theories, because his focus was on the sources and motivations for ideas, not their development and elaboration. 3 . As previously described, neuroses refer to mental disorders characterized by anxiety or other symptoms without biological etiology. Neurotic patients, however, remain in touch with reality. Psychoses, in contrast, involve more severe behavioral changes and loss of touch with reality. 4 . The Leonardo case is also an example of why the standards of empirical proof in psychoanalysis are often criticized and not frequently cited by current creativity theory. Freud took particular pride in this case study (Gay, 1988). In it, Freud argued strongly against the theories of homosexuals as a third sex. He concluded that homosexuality was primarily caused by a deviant psychosexual development in which the (male) child experienced a dominant mother and an absent or emotionally unavailable father. In making the analysis, however, Freud himself acknowledged that he was drawing conclusions from only a few cases and that the family constellation he described occurred much more often than the outcome of homosexu- ality. In addition, the analysis of Leonardo’s case was built on a memory Leonardo reported of a vulture coming into his cradle as an infant. The historical symbolism of the vulture was central to Freud’s analysis, but the text he was using had mistranslated the word for kite, a different bird of prey, as ‘vulture’ (Gay, 1988). 5 . Although experiments were central to Gestalt research, Wertheimer also famously used case studies in his posthumously published Productive Thinking (1945). 6 . The question of whether animals think like humans was a controversy that Köhler engaged as part of his research. For an overview of the relation of the Gestalt research to this debate, see Weisberg (2006). 7 . Prägnanze is both a general principle and specific tendency. The percep- tual tendency to make regular forms includes a number of more specific laws concerning how people perceive shapes, such as the law of proximity (grouping