"Why Creativity Cannot Be Sighted: Blind Variation as a Philosophical Proposition and Psychological
Hypothesis"
Dr. Dean Keith Simonton, The University of California, Davis
Monday, September 17th at 5:30 p.m., 118 Psychology
Although psychology divorced itself from philosophy in the 19th century,
certain substantive issues still require both philosophical analysis and
psychological inquiry. A case in point is Donald Campbell's classic blind
variation and selective retention (BVSR) theory of creative thought. His
original 1960 paper in Psychological Review inspired 50 years of inquiry
that engaged both philosophers and psychologists. Moreover, advocates and
opponents are represented in both disciplines. In my presentation, I argue
that his conjectured relation between creativity and BVSR is inherently
both a philosophical proposition with a logical necessity and a
psychological hypothesis with empirical support. These two aspects of the
theory are mutually reinforcing. The philosophical analysis establishes
why BVSR is logically required in creative thought while the psychological
hypothesis directs empirical research showing exactly how BVSR operates -
the cognitive processes, personality traits, and developmental influences
that encourage the generation of blind ideational variations. The
collective failure to see that the theory depends on both logic and fact
is probably responsible for a half-century of fruitless controversy.
Suggested Readings
Simonton, D. K. (2010). Creative thought as blind-variation and selective-retention: Combinatorial models of excpetional creativity. Physics of Life Reviews.[.pdf]
Simonton, D. K. (2011). Creativity and Discovery as Blind Variation: Campbell's (1960) BVSR Model After the Half-Century Mark. Review of General Psychology.[.pdf]
Simonton, D. K. (2012). Foresight, Insight, Oversight, and Hindsight in Scientific Discovery: How Sighted Were Galileo's Teliscopic Sightings? Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, the Arts.[.pdf]