What is creativity?

Alfred North Whitehead, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

Alfred North Whitehead answers

Creativity is the universal of universals characterizing ultimate matter of fact.1 That formulation wants unpacking, because it can sound like a piece of scholastic decoration rather than a metaphysical claim with teeth. What I mean is this: creativity is the ultimate principle by which the many, which are the universe disjunctively, become the one actual occasion, which is the universe conjunctively.2

It is not one entity among others, not a force that acts upon things from outside, not an attribute that some occasions possess and others lack. It is the sheer advance from disjunction to conjunction — the fact that there is any synthesis at all, that the many enter into complex unity.3 Every actual entity is creativity's creature; and creativity is inexplicable by the forms it conditions, being the ultimate behind all forms.4

It is also, and equally, the principle of novelty. An actual occasion is a novel entity diverse from any entity in the many which it unifies; it is not the sum of its antecedents but something other than them, produced by their togetherness yet not reducible to them.5 The creative advance is the application of this ultimate principle to each novel situation which it originates — a universe perpetually surpassing itself, each occasion adding one to the many it found.6

Here is where the analysis reaches a wall, and the wall is instructive. The production of novel togetherness — concrescence — cannot be explained in terms of higher universals, nor in terms of the components that participate in the concrescence; the analysis of the components abstracts from the concrescence itself.7 You have provided the paper, the type, even the words, but the story and the author have been left out.8

Creative activity always exceeds the relational inventory you have assembled, and what emerges always belongs to what you have left out — so you have always left out the most interesting part of the story.9 The sole appeal, in the end, is to intuition.10 This is why the Category of the Ultimate — creativity, many, one — replaces Aristotle's category of primary substance as the foundational metaphysical notion.11

Substance endures; creativity advances. The many become one, and are increased by one: that is not a slogan but the structural formula of every actual occasion whatsoever, from the most negligible physical event to the highest reach of conscious experience.12

Sources

  1. Creativity is the universal of universals characterizing ultimate matter of fact.
    Process and Reality, pp. 47–48
  2. It is that ultimate principle by which the many, which are the universe disjunctively, become the one actual occasion, which is the universe conjunctively.
    Process and Reality, pp. 47–48
  3. It lies in the nature of things that the many enter into complex unity.
    Process and Reality, pp. 47–48
  4. creativity is the ultimate behind all forms, inexplicable by forms, and conditioned by its creatures.
    Process and Reality, pp. 47–48
  5. An actual occasion is a novel entity diverse from any entity in the 'many' which it unifies.
    Process and Reality, pp. 48–49
  6. The 'creative advance' is the application of this ultimate principle of creativity to each novel situation which it originates.
    Process and Reality, pp. 48–49
  7. The ultimate notions of 'production of novelty' and of 'concrete togetherness' are inexplicable either in terms of higher universals or in terms of the components participating in the concrescence. The analysis of the components abstracts from the concrescence.
    Process and Reality, pp. 48–49
  8. You've provided paper, type, even words; but story and author left out.
    Harvard Lectures 1925-1927, p. 381
  9. what emerges always belongs to what you've left out - so you've always left out the most interesting part of the story.
    Harvard Lectures 1925-1927, p. 381
  10. The sole appeal is to intuition.
    Process and Reality, pp. 48–49
  11. This Category of the Ultimate replaces Aristotle's category of 'primary substance.'
    Process and Reality, pp. 48–49
  12. The many become one, and are increased by one.
    Process and Reality, pp. 48–49