York scholars spotlight creativity in the history of Philosophy

Posted on Tuesday 16 November 2010

The Department of Philosophy at the University of York has set up a research centre to consider these sorts of question, and is organising a series of talks to explore what creativity might mean in philosophy itself.

What we hope to do is to shed some light on our ideas about creativity, and, at the same time, explore what makes philosophy a creative discipline

Dr Nick Jones

Teaching Fellow Dr Nick Jones said: "Creativity is a puzzling notion, and philosophers like to try to understand puzzling notions. We thought that one way of approaching the topic would be to look at important figures in the history of philosophy, and ask what was genuinely creative about their work

"What we hope to do is to shed some light on our ideas about creativity, and, at the same time, explore what makes philosophy a creative discipline. Some of these talks will focus on an individual's philosophical method, some on the way they expressed a problem or arrived at a solution – some will look at their idea of philosophy itself."

The talks begin on 18 November when Professor Mike Beaney discusses 'Some conceptions of creativity' – outlining current thinking about creativity for the other speakers to work from – or maybe to rebel against!

Later talks will consider the creative contributions of Plato, Berkeley, Spinoza, Kant, Marx, Wittgenstein and Sartre.

The eight talks take place, on Thursdays from 6.15pm in The Treehouse, Berrick Saul Building, throughout the 2010-11 academic year.