ABSTRACT
Imagine a marksman shooting targets. She knows exactly what she wants to do, which is hit the bull’s eye, or as close to it as possible. She has a clear idea and view of the target, knows where the bull’s eye is, and knows that success will result in there being a hole through that black circle at the centre of the target. The defining element of creativity can’t just be that it’s unconscious: imagine a carpenter is tasked with making a dresser, and suppose further that they are given very detailed post-hypnotic instructions for carrying out the task. Although there was some historical interest in creativity—notably in Plato’s Ion, in Kant’s Critique of Judgment, and in Collingwood’s The Principles of Art—the paradox of creativity has primarily been a bugaboo of contemporary philosophers, and philosophical work on creativity has really only come into its own in the last few decades.
