Let’s Discuss What Is Creativity?

nasiraijaz October 24, 2025

0 14 8 minutes read

Creativity is a universal phenomenon found in all human societies and at different stages of social and cultural development

It would be wrong to confine creativity and the creative phenomenon to advanced, highly civilized, or industrial societies alone

By Souad Khalil | Libya

Creativity, as commonly defined, is the ability to produce and bring forth something new across all fields — whether scientific or everyday — and most importantly it is linked to the arts and to scientific innovations. In this article we will focus on creative states, whether they are practical, personal, or situational.

Scholars disagree about the meaning of creativity, and their lack of agreement on a clear, precise definition is itself an indicator of the complexity of the subject. It is enough to note that some of these scholars mean by “creativity” the (idea) — creating something entirely new and bringing it into existence — while others mean by the term the process or processes, especially the psychological ones, through which something new of high value is created. A third group looks at creativity in terms of the creative work itself — the product or outcome that results from the capacity to innovate — and at the creative process that ultimately leads to completing and realizing that creative product.

On this topic we take a small excerpt from a study and translation published in the book World of Thought (ʿĀlam al-Fikr). It notes that there are many definitions — or, more correctly, different positions and viewpoints — about the subject that reveal its branching complexity. This is what Donald MacKinnon, one of the most important writers on the psychological aspects of creativity, means when he says that the concept of creativity is not merely a theoretical construct but rather a general principle or rule under which many evaluative matters fall. He himself distinguishes four basic manifestations or aspects of creativity, and he believes that the subject cannot be properly studied unless we encompass all of them, because they overlap and integrate to form the creative phenomenon. These aspects are:

A — The creative work, or the creative product.

B — The creative process.

C — The creative person.

D — The creative situation.

Each of these four aspects, according to some writers, can provide us with answers to a number of problems related to the subject as a whole — such as the nature of the creative work and the characteristics and components by which creative works can be identified; the nature of the creative process and the types of psychological operations that can lead to genuine, authentic creativity; in addition to many questions regarding the distinguishing features of the creative person and the characteristics and prerequisites of the creative situation, and the social and cultural circumstances that help bring forth creative thinking and the creative mind, and so on.

Some studies conducted in the field of creativity have revealed that every person possesses to some degree that special capacity we call creativity, and that this capacity can be nurtured and developed through training and practice. In particular, creative output — to use the phrase employed by Evans and Smith — involves many elements of curiosity, the desire to discover and explore, the urge to ask questions and to provide atypical and unusual answers to them, and the emergence of signs of independence and differentiation in both thought and experience. Evans and Smith view creativity as the ability to deal comfortably with ambiguous or ill-defined problems, to find new and original approaches, and to experiment with and apply entirely novel things. Creative thinking is unconventional or unfamiliar because it does not follow the usual, fixed methods for defining or solving problems.

New creativity must be given the opportunity to prove its worth and demonstrate its importance and usefulness once the creative work has been accomplished and realized externally. This does not mean, however, that creative activity must always concern only useful or practical matters, because constraint and strict adherence ultimately destroy one of the general distinguishing traits of creators — a trait that often leads them to discover new fields. These are some extracts about the creative phenomenon from Donald MacKinnon and Evans Smith, who say that distinguishing between those four aspects that compose the creative phenomenon finds its counterpart in the way psychologists on the one hand, and anthropologists and sociologists on the other, approach the subject. Psychologists direct most of their attention to the individual characteristics that accompany the phenomenon — reflected especially in the creative process itself and in the traits of the creative person — whereas it is logical that sociologists and anthropologists prioritize studying the creative product and the creative situation, given that the social and cultural conditions prevailing in a society necessarily reflect themselves in whatever thought, action, or utterance an individual produces. This does not mean, however, that the other aspects are ignored entirely by psychologists or sociologists. Creativity is an integrated unit with its four limbs, and the study of it should be an integrative approach that surrounds the phenomenon from all sides — individual and collective, psychological and socio-cultural — even if scholars, according to their disciplines, emphasize some aspects more than others. This is another indicator of the phenomenon’s complexity and branching nature.

We must also avoid confusing creativity with certain powers and abilities that the creative individual enjoys. The first thing to note here is the necessity of distinguishing between creativity and intelligence, on the ground that there is not necessarily a one-to-one correspondence between the two. This question occupied many psychologists, especially American scholars who sought to show that conventional intelligence measures are not an accurate standard for measuring originality and creativity. It is true, as Professor MacKinnon says in his article in the International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences (page 438), that the creative person often enjoys a high degree of intelligence, but the relationship is not constant in all cases. All that can be said in this regard is that a certain level of intelligence must be present for a person to be creative. Moreover, the level of intelligence required for creativity differs from one field to another; sometimes it is so low as to be surprising. Perhaps more important than raw intelligence in creativity is the extent to which the creative person can use whatever intelligence they possess to produce creative works and how effectively and skillfully they direct it for that purpose.

The second point is that it would be wrong to confine creativity and the creative phenomenon to advanced, highly civilized, or industrial societies alone. Creativity is a universal phenomenon found in all human societies and at different stages of social and cultural development. Although anthropologists have not always given sufficient attention to intellectual and artistic creativity in so-called “primitive” societies, the few studies that did focus on primitive arts — particularly among some African tribes and Native American groups — reveal the existence of creative artists and even coherent intellectual horizons within the limits of those societies’ prevailing cultures. Among the important studies are the writings of the American anthropologist Paul Radin, especially his book on the “primitive man” as philosopher, which reveals the depth of intellectual creativity found in many of these peoples, and the British anthropologist Raymond Firth’s studies of certain manifestations of primitive art. But perhaps the most significant of these writings are those of the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, particularly his great Mythologiques and some other books in which he presented striking examples of creativity in myth, visual arts, tattooing, ornamentation, and so forth.

There are many examples and images of these creative expressions in such societies, and also when supernatural visions in the world of spirits occur — naturally they are individual, personal visions reflected by the creative artist in their works, and they often reach a very high degree of aesthetic quality.

The third point is that, just as creativity is not limited to some societies and excluded from others, it is also not confined to certain ages at the expense of others; one can find high-level intellectual or artistic creativity in individuals of different age groups. Increasing age is not an obstacle to creativity. Many major achievements in science and the arts were made by creative individuals at late stages of life. Examples are numerous across fields such as biology, physics, mathematics, and many other creative works and innovations that were produced by those for whom age made no difference.

Creative work transcends ordinary human experience and introduces many elements of modification and alteration that may ultimately change experience radically and conflict with traditional conditions. Some creative works even change humanity’s perception of the universe as a whole. This is what some writers mean when they describe creative work as a form of transcendence and as the ability to create new conditions for human existence itself. There are many examples, most evident in scientific creativity: consider Copernicus’ theory of the centrality of the sun, Darwin’s theory of evolution, and Freud’s ideas in psychoanalysis. These are all original breakthroughs that overcame prevailing notions at their times and succeeded in fundamentally changing human perspectives. Perhaps this is what Otto Rank meant in his short phrase that the artist in all branches of creative art does not only create art, but also uses art in creation and innovation.

Studying and analyzing creative works can help us learn a great deal about the people who produced them and the circumstances in which they arose and surrounded them. This is clearer in the study of literary creativity than in other types of artistic, intellectual, or scientific creativity. Studying the lives of creators can help explain their works and products. However, some writers, particularly followers of the structuralist school in France, find it more appropriate and useful to study the creative work in itself, apart from its author — though this does not always imply ignoring the social and cultural circumstances prevailing in the society or the creative situation. According to terminology used in creativity studies, any creative work is ultimately part of that culture. Despite everything said about creativity as a faculty, gift, or talent, and about the creative work as a unique product of a particular person with its specific personal components, there is no doubt about the interaction between the creative person and society — even if that interaction sometimes takes a negative form, manifesting as revolt by creators against prevailing conditions and traditions. This is reflected in the distinctness of some of them in style and in an independent pattern of behavior and values that depart from the usual. What is said about the bohemian lives of some artists is, in reality, one form of that revolt, which is characterized by disdain for society and inherited values; it simultaneously expresses the sense of suffering these creative artists experience in life. In any case, tracing the life histories of creative individuals is among the most important sources for understanding the creative situation.

In these final lines we take a small portion of this reading about the creative phenomenon: namely, that the creative process is not meant to be simply the production or realization of a specific creative work — such as painting an oil canvas, composing a musical piece, or writing a poem — but rather the mental process by which the creative work can be envisaged as a whole unit before beginning its actual execution. This process helps, for example, a composer to conceive a symphony as an integrated whole made up of a set of melodies that revolve in his mind before he transcribes them onto the score; it helps the novelist to sense the entire novel or the whole story as a unit before he lays down a single word on paper; and it helps the painter to look at a landscape and see what he will paint. The execution and realization of the creative work itself then becomes a matter of shaping the raw materials and elements used by the creative person — which vary according to the field of their creativity (musical tones, words, colors and pigments, and so on) — so that in the end it approaches that mental vision that preceded the work itself. Thus the creative person forms a general idea or holistic conception of the subject he wishes to create before taking any practical step toward its realization.