ABSTRACT
In moving beyond the ‘creativity’ terms as such, we expressly recognise that any term can only be defined through terms that it is not. In a simple sense this is because all attempts at dictionary definition lead from one entry to another and another and usually at some point back to the entry you started with (look up ‘word’ and ‘language’ to see such circular logic in action). In a rather more complex sense it is because language is composed of an interplay of differences (‘differences without positive terms,’ as Saussure put it) so any encounter with absolute sense is ultimately deferred (hence Derrida’s pun upon différance meaning both ‘deferral’ and ‘difference’). Such problems and possibilities are especially acute with a concept as elusive and pervasive as ‘creativity’. If the latter is always, in Bohm and Peat’s phrase, ‘more than and different from’ whatever we expect it to be, it is imperative that we get beyond the dominant constructions (and constrictions) of the term so as to enrich and extend the potential range of the concept. It is also important, as intimated in the above epigraphs, that we develop a way of theorising that is principled and yet flexible: aware of the historical force and current sense of our key terms, but also open to the possibility that they may need to be refined or be replaced by others as the occasion arises. In the present chapter, therefore, the question is what are the ‘alternative terms’, where are they emerging from – and what and where next?
