Psycho-Philosophical Creativity - Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

"Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021) identified a type of highly focused mental state conducive to productivity and creativity. He called it the 'flow'. He described flow as "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost." Csikszentmihalyi advanced a model odf creativity that stresses the importance of a 'specific domain' to make meaningful contributions within a culture - a time and place in history where many variables come together to form a situation where creativity can bloom. . . .

Csikszentmihalyi work focuses on creativity as a cultural phenomenon. It is useful, he says, to think about culture as systems of interrelated domains. He puts forward a model of creativity consisting of a domain, a field, and a person. The domain is the wider area of cultural application, whether that be sculpture, mathematics, reason or science. Inside the domain is the specific field; and inside the field is the person. Csikszentmihalyi outlines the creative person as having "a sense that one's skills are adequate to cope with the challenges at hand, in a goal directed, rule-bound action system" (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, 1990)." p.10.

 Individual
   |

      INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC  --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

 SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

Group

person domain field creativity	person domain field creativity
domain field culture creativity	domain field culture creativity

Culture also extends to the psychological (mental life) and physical (sciences); person(s) are supported, it is hoped, by their society, and political structures and services.

'Domain(s) can be organised, designated and structured in other ways. This would include, the center of Hodges' model not necessarily being fixed.

There is a paper to be written on Hodges' model related to inter- multi- transdisciplinarity.

Jones, L., Plaiting Gravy, Philosophy Now. Creativity. December 2022 / January 2023: Issue 153. pp.9-11.