ABSTRACT
Heuristics for philosophical creativity' may sound like an oxymoron. This chapter offers some heuristics for philosophical creativity, by saying more about 'heuristics', 'philosophical', and 'creativity'. Heuristics make complex or difficult tasks simpler. Good heuristics guide us to accomplishing such tasks well. As such, there are heuristics for chess, checkers, bridge, bridge-building, football, baseball, base-jumping, pottery, poetry, and so on. The best heuristics tend to have the best ratio of value of outputs to ease of use—of bang for one's cognitive buck. The best heuristics will also be general enough to be usable with some frequency. Philosophers often 'tie their hands' in their works by helping themselves to just a limited stock of concepts, properties, or statements. According to the logical positivists' verificationism, unverifiable statements are meaningless; according to Popper's falsificationism, unfalsifiable statements are unscientific. This heuristic is for the 'hypothesis generation' phase of philosophical enquiry. This heuristic is for the 'hypothesis generation' phase of philosophical enquiry.
