Creativity as a travelling concept: from Alexander Gerard to Richard Florida

Abstract

The article describes creativity as a travelling concept. It is written from an interdisciplinary and historical perspective. The point of departure is the 18th century, when Alexander Gerard and William Duff, two Scottish thinkers, laid the foundation for modern understanding of creativity. The next destination is the second part of the 19th century, when Francis Galton published a seminal book about genius which strongly influenced the early 20th century theory of intelligence. After that Joy P. Guilford’s proposal of 1950 is discussed to study creativity as a separate problem. In the last part of the article recently developed approaches to creativity are summarized, inter alia everyday creativity and creative industries. Additionally, the article presents the evolution of the terms related to creativity and highlights the continuity between the Scottish thinkers’ writings and modern concepts.

Keywords

• creativity
• imagination
• intelligence
• travelling concept
• alexander gerard