A Discourse on Novelty and Creation

By Carl R. Hausman

Subjects: Philosophy
Series: SUNY series in Philosophy
Paperback : 9780873958653, 159 pages, June 1985
Hardcover : 9780873958646, 159 pages, June 1985
Out of print (Hardcover)

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Table of contents

Introduction: The Problem, its Background, and a Sketch of its Treatment

I. Production and Radical Creation

A. Novelty Proper
1. Individuality and Radical Newness
2. Form a. Form, structures, and valuation
b. Form and novelty, some problems and puzzles B. Novelty Proper and Creative Acts 1. Imitation and Craftsmanship
2. Creative Process and Critical Control
3. Creative Achievement and Duplication of Novelty C. Value and Creativity 1. Instrumental Value
2. Instrumental Value and Tradition
3. Inerent Value
II. Spontaneity: The Paradox and the Possibility of Explanation

A. General Remarks about Explanation
B. The Paradox of Creativity
1. Whitehead and Explanation
2. The Paradox in the Context of the Husserlian Account of Consciousness
3. Nicolai Hartmann's Acknowledgment of the Radical Puzzle C. The Reality of Spontaneity and the Challenge of Determinism 1. Positivism
2. Teleological Determinism
3. Mechanistic Determinism D. Intelligibility and the Resources of Language

III. Language and the Aesthetic Structure of Novelty

A. Originative Speech as Oblique Expression 1. Language and Speech
2. Speech and Implements B. Speech and Metaphors
1. Indirect Speech and Metaphor in Art, Science, and Philosophy
2. Metaphors and the Organic Character of Art
3. Metaphors as Constitutive Negations
4. Metaphors and "Family Resemblances" C. Metaphors and the Intelligibility of Created Objects
1. Metaphorical Expression and PAradox
2. The Structure of Novelty
3. Intelligibility and Familiarity
IV. Fundamental Paradox and Intelligibility

A. The Absurd
B. Two Loci of the Absurd
C. The Second Model of Intelligibility
D. The Possibility of a Third Model of Intelligibility

Index

Description

Carl Hausman presents here a sustained and systematic examination of the problems of constructing a framework for understanding the concept of creativity. His discussion is unique in focusing systematically on problems of understanding creativity, examining our assumptions about what we take to be creative, and the possibility of seeing how creativity fits into a world that we expect to behave in rational patterns. In a careful examination of this complex phenomena, Hausman suggests a way of approaching creativity in terms of a novel theory of metaphor.

Carl R. Hausman is Professor of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. His writings in aesthetics and metaphysics have been published in several journals and books.

Reviews

"Carl Hausman's Discourse on Novelty and Creation is an extremely subtle analysis of the problem of novelty in art, and the catholicity of Hausman's reading makes this work stand out from all other treatments, usually analytical, of this subject. I am impressed with the thoroughness and imagination of this book." — Robert C. Neville