New Phenomenology 1
Running Head: CREATIVE DOMAINS IN NEW PHENOMENOLOGY
The Domain-Specificity of Creativity: Insights from New Phenomenology
Christian Julmi and Ewald Scherm
FernUniversität in Hagen
New Phenomenology 2
Abstract
The question of the domain-specificity of creativity represents one of the key questions in
creativity research. This article aims to contribute to this issue by applying insights from new
phenomenology, which is a phenomenological movement from Germany initiated by
philosopher Hermann Schmitz. The findings of new phenomenology suggest that creativity is a
domain-specific ability and three domains have to be differentiated on the uppermost level:
firstly, the domain of corporeal creativity, whose task is to present atmospheres; secondly, the
domain of hermeneutic creativity, which is characterized by dealing with situations; and thirdly,
the domain of analytical creativity, which refers to dealing with constellations. These domains
can be differentiated further still, so that a high consistency of phenomenological approaches
with other findings with regard to the question of the domain-specificity of creativity emerges.
New Phenomenology 3
The Domain-Specificity of Creativity: Insights from New Phenomenology
People accomplish creative performances in extremely different domains (Lubart, 1994;
Runco 2007). It is therefore not surprising that creativity has been studied in such diverse
domains as poetry (Patrick, 1935; Ludwig 1994; Sundararajan, 2002), visual arts (Patrick, 1937;
Mace & Ward, 2002), science (Patrick, 1938; Root-Bernstein, Bernstein, & Garnier 1995;
Rothenberg, 1996; Diakidoy & Constantinou, 2001; Hu, Shi, Han, Wang, & Adey 2010),
architecture (MacKinnon, 1962, 1965; Dudek & Hall, 1992), cinematography (Domino, 1974),
dance (Alter, 1989; Thomson, 2011), music (Alter, 1989; Sawyer, 1992; Woody II, 1999),
morality (Gruber, 1993; Runco, 1993), acting (Nemiro, 1997), comedy (Pritzker & Runco,
1997), photography (Domino & Giulani, 1997), fiction (Doyle, 1998), negotiations (Kurtzberg,
1998), design (Goldschmidt, 1999; Gero & Kannengiesser, 2011) or culinary art (Horng & Hu,
2008, 2009; Stierand, Dörfler, & MacBryde, 2014). In view of these varied and extremely
different fields, there is a discussion in research as to whether creativity is a universal
phenomenon, or whether the skills, aptitudes, traits, propensities and motivations that underlie a
creative performance achievement must be differentiated as to domains. The question whether
creativity is domain specific or domain general (or something in between) is one of the key
issues in creativity research (Baer, 2010).
A common distinction often implicitly or explicitly made is that between the domains of
scientific and artistic creativity. According to MacKinnon (1962), artistic creativity “results in
products that are clearly expressions of the creator’s inner states, his needs, perceptions,
motivations, and the like”, whereas scientific creativity results in a creative product that “is
unrelated to the creator as a person, who in his creative work acts largely as a mediator between
externally defined needs and goals” (both p. 485). A similar distinction is made by Ludwig
New Phenomenology 4
(1998) who contrasted the personal, subjective and meaningfulness focus of artists with the
impersonal, objective and fact-oriented focus of scientists. Another two-dimensional view of
domains can be traced back to Snow (1959), who referred to the humanities and the sciences as
two disparate cultures.
Beyond these two-dimensional conceptions there are theories of domains offering a more
differentiated view. The theory of the eight intelligences by Gardner (1983, 1993, 1999) is
“probably the best known theory of domain differences” (Runco, 2007, p. 406). Gardner
distinguished between verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, bodily-kinesthetic,
visual-spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalistic domains. Feist (2004) proposed seven
domains of creative thinking: psychology, physics, biology, linguistics, math, art, and music.
Aside from these horizontal approaches, hierarchical models of creative domains have also been
offered (Ludwig, 1998; Baer & Kaufman, 2005; Simonton, 2009).
The classification system of person and environment from Holland (1959, 1973, 1997)
can also be applied to the question of domain differences. Holland differentiated six types of
personal interest expressible in six corresponding occupational domains: Artistic, investigative,
social, enterprising, realistic, and conventional. In contrast to Gardner and Feist, the six domains
of Holland differ significantly in their relevance to creativity, with the artistic domain showing
the most and the conventional domain showing the least relevance to creativity. The
classification system of Holland has been applied to creativity research, for example, by Helson,
Roberts, and Agronick (1995), or Ludwig (1995). Other interest-related theories concerning
domain differences were developed by Strong (1943) and Kuder (1977).
The present article draws from phenomenology to offer a useful perspective on the
domain specificity of creativity. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to explicitly apply
New Phenomenology 5
phenomenology to this issue. The core of the following phenomenological analysis stems from
the work of the phenomenologist and founder of new phenomenology Hermann Schmitz. Before
the ideas of Schmitz are introduced, however, the phenomenological method and its (potential)
relevance to creativity research need to be outlined.
The Domain-Specificity of Creativity in New Phenomenology
The Phenomenological Method
Generally speaking, phenomenology is the study of phenomena. A phenomenon is a state
of affairs whose factuality appears to someone at a specific time to be unchangeable even with an
arbitrary variation of all possible assumptions, and imposes itself on him in such a way that he is
unable to deny its existence seriously. A phenomenon is, for example, felt pain, because it cannot
be denied through the assumption that it does not exist (Schmitz, 1967, 2009; Schmitz, Müllan,
& Slaby, 2011).
Phenomenology represents a qualitative research method by means of which people’s
subjective experience is investigated. Phenomenology is an empirical method, which, like the
scientific/normative method, initially carries out observations and draws conclusion from them.
In this way, theories in the sense of category systems can be acquired that permit a phenomenon
to be named and described. Quantitative research findings can be validated or rejected by means
of phenomenological analysis (Sanders, 1982). For example, laboratory findings according to
which the patient is healthy can be rejected through felt pain. There are already several theories
in phenomenology that provide a vocabulary with which phenomena can be analyzed and set into
relationship with quantitative research findings. Among the most familiar theories are the studies
by Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Hermann Schmitz. In
New Phenomenology 6
Germany, ”Schmitz has influenced a new generation of philosophers and is becoming more
frequently cited by English speaking scholars” (Grant, 2013, p. 16).
The phenomenological method is suited in general for researching into the creative
process, because this represents a significant and unique human experience (Bindeman, 1998;
Nelson, 2011) and it is the task of phenomenology to deal with people’s subjective experience:
Phenomenology seeks to make explicit the implicit structure and meaning of human
experiences. It is the search for “essences” that cannot be revealed by ordinary
observation. Phenomenology is the science of essential structures of consciousness or
experience. (Sanders, 1982, p. 354)
The creative process has, as a phenomenon, been described in extremely different
domains, including natural sciences (Mach, 1898; Einstein, 1952; Poincaré, 1970), literature
(Epel, 1993; Piirto, 2005), painting (Van Gogh, 1952; Zervos, 1952) and music (Mozart, 1970;
Tchaikovsky, 1970). In spite of this, to date there have been only a few phenomenological
analyses of the creative process (Bindeman, 1998; Mace & Ward, 2002; Henderson, 2004;
Nelson & Rawlings, 2007, 2009). Bindeman’s study analyzed the creative process described by
creative personalities (e.g., by Poincaré and Picasso) on the basis of Husserl’s (1913/1962)
phenomenological studies. This article differs from Bindeman’s work in two ways. First, the
present article refers to Schmitz (1965, 1966, 1967, 1974, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1994, 2005a, 2005b,
2009, 2010a, 2010b, 2011, 2013) and Schmitz, Müllan, and Slaby (2011) instead of Husserl.
Second, Bindeman analyzed the different stages of the highly dynamic creative process to
identify principles inherent in the creative process across domains, whereas the present article
seeks to highlight the differences inherent in all stages of the creative process between domains.
These two approaches do therefore rather complement than contradict each other — at least as
New Phenomenology 7
long as a view recognizing both domain-general and domain-specific aspects of creativity is
accepted. The work of Schmitz is especially useful for a phenomenological understanding of the
domain specific nature of creativity.
The Development of New Phenomenology
The German philosopher Hermann Schmitz developed his system of new phenomenology
to regain “a sensibility for the nuanced realities of lived experience” (Schmitz, Müllan, & Slaby,
2011, p. 241). He developed the greater part of his philosophy in a ten-volume, 5,000 page
system of philosophy from 1964 to 1980, but is still publishing (e. g., Schmitz, 2013, 2014). Key
to this system is the felt body (“Leib” in German) as a constitutive element of human experience:
The system offers a systematic phenomenology of the felt body and the various forms of
embodied experience and subsequently draws out several implications of this broad
approach, resulting in phenomenological theories of subjectivity and personhood, of
emotions and feelings, of space and time, of art, of religious and spiritual experience, of
morals and law — to name just the key themes. (Schmitz, Müllan, & Slaby, 2011, p. 242)
Schmitz’s philosophy is practical and application-oriented and has attracted academics
outside philosophy such as sociology, cultural theory, management theory, the arts, architecture,
psychiatry, medicine, or urban planning (Schmitz, Müllan, & Slaby, 2011; Grant, 2013). The
articles from Langewitz (2007, 2009) and Grant are examples of scientific applications in
medicine and urban planning. Since only one of Schmitz’s articles is available in English
(i. e. Schmitz, Müllan, & Slaby, 2011), the majority of this chapter refers to publications that are
only available in German.
New Phenomenology 8
Felt-body, Atmosphere, Situation and Constellation
Before Schmitz’s definition of intelligence is explained, some fundamental concepts have
to be introduced first. These are the concepts felt body, atmosphere, situation and constellation.
In some cases, Schmitz has devoted several books to these concepts, but we hope that we will be
able to describe them briefly.
According to Schmitz (1965, 2009, 2011), the felt body is what people feel of their own
bodies. In contrast to the objectively measurable body, the felt body is always the subjectively
sensed felt body. The felt body is what someone can feel of himself in the area (but not always
within the limits) of his body, as belonging to him, without making use of the five senses,
namely seeing and feeling, and of the perceptive corporeal schema acquired from experience (the
habitual idea of one’s own body). Schmitz illustrated the difference between felt body and
physical body using the example of someone ill with fever who feels physically that his forehead
is hot (“I am hot”), but this feels cool when it is actually touched (“that is cold”). Phenomena of
what is directly felt (corporeal stirrings), which can be assigned neither to a person’s physical
body nor to his psyche, can be objectively described with the concept of the felt body. These
include, for example, tiredness, freshness or hunger. This means by implication that the felt body
does not find a place conceptually within a dualist paradigm, which is why most works by
Schmitz start by criticizing this (e.g., Schmitz, Müllan, & Slaby, 2011).
Closely linked with the concept of the felt body is the concept of the atmosphere, because
atmospheres as spatially poured out emotions in the domain of what is experienced as present,
are felt holistically on the own felt body. On the one hand, atmospheres are objectively present in
the space, but on the other hand impinge on the subjective corporeal condition via so-called
bridging qualities. There are two types of bridging quality: suggestions of motion and synesthetic
New Phenomenology 9
characters. Suggestions of motion are omens of motions, which can emanate from latent as well
as from executed motions. They depict the suggestion of a motion that can be felt on the own felt
body. Examples of suggestions of motion are a glare, the branches of a weeping willow, a
pointed finger that stabs the person pointed at like a dagger, an eye-stinging smell, or the rhythm
of a piece of music. Synesthetic characters are qualities of perception that go beyond that
allocation to individual genres of perception (e.g., colors, temperatures, noise or light). A color is
perceived as bright or dark (light), as cold or warm (temperature). Sounds can be heavy, dense or
hard (mass). Generally, synesthetic characters stand out due to plus and minus qualities (and a
neutral zone between them). For example, plus qualities are bright, warm, fast, loud. Minus
qualities are then correspondingly dark, cold, calm, quiet (Schmitz, 1969, 1974, 1977, 1978,
1994, 2009, 2011).
For Schmitz (1980, 2005a, 2009, 2010b), people are always embedded in situations.
Along with an individual’s personal situation, there are many shared situations (e.g., the common
situation at work, at a party, or when shopping) through which the personal situation acquires a
social background. Schmitz defined situations through three attributes. Firstly, situations are
uniform, that is, they are characterized by coherence in themselves and by external detachment.
Secondly, situations cohere through a meaningfulness that consists of significances.
Significances are state of affairs, programs or problems. A state of affairs indicates that
something is; a program means that something should be or is desired; a problem refers to the
question of whether something is. Thirdly, the meaningfulness of a situation is internally diffuse.
This means that individual significances have to be neither individually countable nor separable
from each other. Through peoples linguistic abilities it is possible for them to explicate and
combine individual state of affairs, programs and problems from the internally diffuse, holistic
New Phenomenology 10
meaningfulness of situations. However, such a combination or interlinking of individual
significances no longer satisfies the definition of a situation, which is why Schmitz referred
instead to a constellation. Situations can be more or less reconstructed and processed through
constellations. Objectification can only take place with the successful explication of individual
significances in constellations. The difference between situations and constellations is similar to
what Snow (1959) referred to as the two cultures or Kauffman (2010) called the schism between
practical life and pure reason.
Situations are mostly permeated with atmospheres that lend them a specific character,
although situations cannot be identified via atmospheres. Constellations cannot be permeated by
atmospheres because they lack the holistic character that is essential for atmospheres (Schmitz,
2005b, 2013).
Intelligence and Creativity
Schmitz (2010a, 2013) defined intelligence as the ability to lead programs to success in
such a way that this success is achieved not through the mere application of given schemata, but
through a new identification adapted to the circumstances. He differentiated three types of
intelligence in the broader sense: corporeal, hermeneutic and analytical intelligence.
Corporeal intelligence is the ability to deal with situations holistically without explicating
individual significances. One example of corporeal intelligence is the driver who has to
recognize the danger of a threatening accident at a glance and to react to the external
circumstances (asphalt, rain, trees, cars) without recognizing them individually. In contrast to
hermeneutic and analytical intelligence, corporeal intelligence operates without speech.
Intelligence in the narrower sense refers to dealing with individual significances and is
divided into hermeneutic and analytical intelligence. Hermeneutic intelligence explicates
New Phenomenology 11
individual significances from situations so sparingly that the wholeness of the situation can still
be detectable. There are two types of hermeneutic intelligence: as the adaptation to situations or
as the arrangement of situations. Adapting to situations is characterized by the cadence that
respects situations in their wholeness. This type of hermeneutic intelligence is important in
generally dealing with people, for example in politics or the family. It makes it possible to grasp
which acts and words are suitable in a situation, or where the limits of what is achievable lie. The
arrangement of situations is poetry, which is understood as the skillful economy of speech.
Individual states of affairs, programs or problems are retrieved to carefully form the internally
diffuse meaningfulness of the situation that the wholeness of the situation can shimmer through.
With analytical intelligence, individual significances are explicated and combined from
situations as valid facts. Accordingly, analytical intelligence is the ability to extract individual
significances from situations (explication) and to link them (combination). Whereas hermeneutic
thought is bound to the situation, analytical thought is emancipated from the situation. An
objectifying motion starts that, on the one hand, opens up possibilities of manipulation, but, on
the other hand, is exposed to the danger of the loss of (human) reality.
For Schmitz (2013), intelligence represents a necessary, but not sufficient precondition
for creativity, which represents a common view in research (e.g., Sternberg, 1988; Kaufman,
2002, 2012). This can already be seen in the outlined understanding of intelligence as a new
identification adapted to the circumstances. Because this is constitutive for creativity as well, this
implies that a creative performance is always intelligent. However, an intelligent performance is
not creative until something is understood and can be processed as a whole — because only if we
have the feeling of penetrating something as a whole can we deal with it as if we had found the
decisive word, as if we had somehow discovered the secret and could make what it was about as
New Phenomenology 12
a whole visible. An insight of this type is an essential component of the creative process (Wallas,
1926; Sternberg & Davidson, 1995) and productive thought in Gestalt psychology (Wertheimer,
1945).
In the following it will be shown what characterizes corporeal, hermeneutic and
analytical creativity.
Corporeal Creativity
Schmitz (1966, 2013) argued that it is integral to art (i.e. music, architecture, painting,
graphics, sculpture and dance) to embody something that can be felt on one’s own felt body —
similar to what MacKinnon (1962) calls “expressions of the creator's inner states” (p. 485). This
type of creativity is corporeal. It is the result of an encounter of corporeal feeling with
atmospheres. It is the artists felt corporeality that guides and inspires creativity. The work of art
does not acquire its specific character from an intellectual act in the form of an idea, but from the
artist’s specific condition that he feels in his own felt body. While an artist can be guided by an
idea, this does not lend the work of art its artistic quality. Artistic creativity consists of
transferring a stimulus felt in one’s own felt body into the objective form. This stimulus can have
its origin in the felt body itself (which is frequently the case in modern art in particular) or in an
atmosphere that intervenes in the artist’s corporeal feeling via suggestions of motion and
synesthetic characters. The artists drive is a corporeally felt impulse that guides the artist as a
suggestion of motion. While a dancer reveals this impulse directly on his or her body, with the
visual artist the impulse is disclosed in the work. Correspondingly, a work of art also has an
atmospheric effect through suggestions of motion and synesthetic characters (e.g., the
atmosphere of a painting, a sculpture, a piece of music, a church, a dance performance). In sum,
it is the task of art to present atmospheres, and the ability of the artist is his corporeal creativity.
New Phenomenology 13
Works of art represent atmospheres without situations. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata
may be a fitting atmosphere for a moonlight situation, but it cannot be said that the sonata
represented primarily a situation of moonlight, even if Rellstab, who gave the sonata its name,
was possibly of this opinion (Schmitz, 2013). Because works of art do not represent situations,
they can be integrated very well atmospherically into existing situations, for example as a
painting in the personal living situation or as an atmospheric accompaniment to a situation
shown in a film.
Hermeneutic Creativity
According to Schmitz (2010a, 2013), hermeneutic creativity is possible in the two forms
referred to as adapting to and as arranging situations. Creativity in adapting to situations is
revealed in the ability to grasp a situation in its entirety and to adapt to it. Hermeneutic creativity
permits skilful dealing in a negotiation situation, if the negotiator knows exactly when the right
time has come to put forward demands, when it is better for him to concede, when a change
occurs, or what silence means. This includes dealing skillfully with the atmospheres of a
situation.
Schmitz (2010a) illustrated the sparing arrangement of situations in poetry by means of
Goethe’s lines “Above all summits/Is rest”, in which it is exactly the sparing word “is” that lets
the meaningfulness of the situation shine through and makes it become alive (a comprehensive
discussion of the word “is” in this poem can be found in Heidegger, 1981/1998). A hermeneutic
sparingness of this kind is also represented by the principle of the Japanese haiku, but it can also
be found in epic and dramatic poetry. Whereas the artist presents atmospheres (without speech),
it is the task of poetry to represent situations by carefully explicating them (via speech) so that
they are made accessible in their entirety.
New Phenomenology 14
Naturally, atmospheres also play an important part in adapting to situations and for the
poet, because situations are not only permeated by atmospheres, but the atmospheres lend the
situations a specific character, similar to what Standley (2008) called “the emotional context of
the situation” (p. 443). In the outlined negotiation situation, the intonation, facial expressions or
gesticulations both of the negotiation partners and one’s own are important for grasping and
dealing with the situation. For the poet, suggestions of motion and synesthetic characters are a
favorite stylistic device for accentuating a described situation atmospherically. For example, in
his novel Hannibal Harris (1999) wrote:
Starling felt pierced and lonesome in this goat-smelling surveillance van crowded with
men. Chaps, Brut, Old Spice, sweat and leather. She felt some fear, and it tasted like a
penny under her tongue. (p. 8)
An atmosphere (or an emotion) can trigger in the poet an impulse to write, but in the end
the inspiration comes from language and its implications (Piirto, 2005), which is why poets are
not corporeally creative.
Analytical Creativity
Analytical creativity means on the one hand seeing through the entirety of a situation so
that the situation is reduced to its essence by means of explication of individual significances
and, on the other hand, combining the individual significances so skillfully with one another into
constellations that the situation can be brought under control in this way. It is analytical
creativity that enables people to plan something, or to conjure up constellations of possibilities
according to which situations can be reshaped in certain circumstances. Analytical creativity
enables objective correlations to be gained from subjective situations. While the subjective
New Phenomenology 15
situation has a living character through its totality and internally diffuse structure, objective
constellations are lifeless (Schmitz, 2005a, 2010a). This becomes clear for example with the
physical sciences, about which Feist (2005) wrote:
Physical knowledge concerns the inanimate world of physical objects (including tools);
their movement, positioning, and causal relations in space; and their inner workings
(machines). (p. 124)
Because there are many ways for explicating and combining individual significances
from situations, it is possible analogously that the significances that are explicated independently
of each other from different points of view are contradictory (e. g, Euclidian geometry and Non-
Euclidian geometry). This can be understood as the philosophical equivalent to Gödel's (1931)
incompleteness theorems in mathematics, according to which it is impossible to find a complete
and consistent constellation of axioms that can be applied to the whole of mathematics. With
regard to these theorems, a creative mathematician is characterized by finding a new
constellation of axioms that have the greatest possible impact within mathematics.
A mathematician or scientist can also become hermeneutically creative, for example by
trying to represent a whole area of science (i.e. a network of constellations) as a situation. One
famous example is Sherrington’s (1942) description of the functioning of the brain:
The brain is an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving
pattern. (p. 178)
With Torrance (1988) and his artistic definitions of creativity, approaches can be found to
define the concept of creativity not analytically but hermeneutically (e.g., “creativity is wanting
to know”, p. 49, “creativity is looking twice” or “creativity is listening for smells”, both p. 50).
Torrance remarked that these are particularly suitable for generating hypotheses, or acquiring
New Phenomenology 16
theories. The reason for this is that these artistic definitions represent internally diffuse situations
(in contrast perhaps to the constellations of the definition on which this paper is based), from
which individual significances can be explicated and combined in different ways.
Phenomenological Outcome
In summary it can be stated that corporeal creativity deals with atmospheres, hermeneutic
creativity with situations and analytical creativity with constellations. These findings support a
domain-specific point of view, whereby the three types of creativity differ primarily in the
underlying structure of the creative processes (i.e. corporeal, hermeneutic, analytic processes)
and not — as in most studies — with regard to the domains to which the creative products can be
assigned (e.g., music, poetry, math). In spite of this, on an abstract level the three types of
creativity can (in most cases) also be applied to the description of creative products and creative
persons. With creative products, for example, a piece of music can be spoken of as atmosphere, a
poem as a situation and Euclidian geometry as a constellation of axioms. With regard to persons,
we can speak of corporeal, hermeneutic and analytical abilities. These can also be interpreted as
different cognitive styles, understood as a person’s stable and preferred cognitive strategy for
acquiring, applying and maintaining knowledge and experiences for the solution of a problem
(Miron-Spektor, Erez, & Naveh, 2011). Some people prefer to orient themselves to individual
facts and their combination, others rely preferably on the holistic impression that they have of a
situation.
Discussion
In the first place, the theoretical foundation of creativity reveals that creativity is not
(exclusively) domain-general and that three domains have to be differentiated on the uppermost
level: corporeal, hermeneutic and analytical creativity. These three domains are characterized by
New Phenomenology 17
a fundamental difference between creative processes and underlying abilities. Starting from this,
and in descending hierarchical order, further sub-domains can be differentiated. This idea of a
hierarchy is consistent with the work of Ludwig (1998), Baer and Kaufman (2005), Simonton
(2009), and others. It is also consistent with the empirical findings of Kaufman and Baer (2004),
and Rawlings and Locarnini (2007), whose explorative factor analyses resulted in three
superordinate factors: Creativity in empathy/communication (interpersonal relationships, solving
personal problems, writing), “hands on” creativity (art, crafts, bodily/physical), and math/science
creativity (math, science). The identified domain-specificity of creativity does not rule out that
there are domain-general factors that are necessary for creativity (e.g., intelligence, motivation,
environment). However, it rules out that there are domain-general factors that are equally
sufficient for corporeal, hermeneutic and analytical creativity.
Importantly, the theory of domains shown here provides a vocabulary for discussing
ascertained differences in creativity research. For example, it can be explained why there are
cases in science in which two or more scientists are able to make the same discoveries
independently of each other (so-called multiples, e.g., the invention of the telephone by Gray and
Bell), but two musicians will never compose the same symphony (Simonton, 1988, 1999).
Scientists work in more or less the same network of constellations and thus in principle can also
deduce in the same way in this network. In contrast, a musician always expresses his own unique
corporeal impulses. In addition, the theory permits differentiation within a domain. Writing,
understanding and analyzing poetry are three abilities of one domain: the linguistic domain
(Sternberg, 2005). However, they differ in that the author of a poem arranges situations, whereas
the experienced reader is able to adapt to these, and the critic explicates individual significances
as valid facts analytically.
New Phenomenology 18
The theory provided also allows for the rejection of certain empirical findings which are
in conflict with the presented scheme. This is the case, for example, with culinary art being
assigned to the scientific factor in the study of Carson, Peterson, and Higgins (2005). According
to the phenomenological findings, culinary creativity is about the presentation of atmospheres (as
anyone can visualize with a good wine, whose quality is measured both with synesthetic
characters such as soft or heavy taste and also with suggestions of motion, such as the tingling or
biting aroma) and is to be assigned to corporeal creativity. In contrast, with architecture it is
plausible that it could not be assigned unambiguously to any factor in the same study, because in
architecture presenting atmospheres is just as relevant as knowledge of the constellations of
engineering sciences (MacKinnon, 1962).
Naturally, certain limitations arise with regard to the three identified domains. To begin
with, they cannot always be discretely separated from each other, but flow into each other. In this
spectrum, the domain writing, for example, cannot be located clearly: while Japanese haikus or
short poems come closest to the ideal of hermeneutic creativity, texts from the nonfiction domain
are oriented more strongly to individual facts and constellations of facts, which is why they have
to be assigned in part to the domain of analytical creativity. Besides, it is not clear how far
adapting to and arranging situations involve two different abilities. Accordingly, many poets can
focus just on their work and compose own situations, if they withdraw from the situations in
which they are personally involved and shut themselves off from them (Perry, 2005). This retreat
from situations can be (although need not be) understood as the opposite of adapting to them, so
that along with the described commonality a certain diversity of abilities appears plausible. The
New Phenomenology 19
difference between turning inward to write fiction and turning outward to write about reality
made by Kohányi (2005) may also be considered in this context.
In general, limitations apply that can be found in other works as well (e.g., Baer, 2010).
Accordingly, domain-specificity does not imply that people are, or can only be, creative in one
domain. It is naturally possible that a person can be both corporeally and analytically (or
hermeneutically) creative. In addition, corporeal creativity does not mean that a high level of
creativity in the domain of painting automatically accompanies a level of creativity in other
corporeal domains (e.g., music). The reason for this is that, among other things, creativity usually
requires a substantial knowledge base, but only a few people have such a base in different
domains, or have the time to acquire one (Hayes, 1989; Amabile, 1996; Sternberg, 2005; Baer,
2010).
We believe that the strength of the presented model lies in its integrative nature. It is, for
example, not contradictory to Gardner’s (1983, 1993, 1999) approach. Instead, Gardner’s
domains of intelligence can be assigned to corporeal creativity (i. e. musical, bodily-kinesthetic,
and visual-spatial domains), hermeneutic creativity (i. e. verbal-linguistic, interpersonal, and
intrapersonal domains), and analytical creativity (i. e. logical-mathematical and naturalistic
domains). But, while the list of domains considered by Gardner may be extended or changed
over time, the structure presented here reflects basal characteristics of human subjective
experience. This does not mean, however, that the structure demonstrated has to coincide with
people’s belief about creativity or be experienced consciously. Kaufman and Baer’s statement
(2004) applies here as well:
Peoples beliefs about creativity may be (and probably are) different than the underlying
structure of creativity. (p. 151)
New Phenomenology 20
The structure of subjective experience is not identical with the subjectively experienced
structure. Instead, the structure of subjective experience is, in the phenomenological sense, what
proves to be immutable in any variation of all possible subjectively experienced structures.
New Phenomenology 21
References
Alter, J. (1989). Creativity profile of university and conservatory music students. Creativity
Research Journal, 2, 184-195.
Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context: Update to the social psychology of creativity.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Baer, J. (2010). Is creativity domain specific? In Kaufmann, J. C., & Sternberg, R. J. (Eds.), The
Cambridge handbook of creativity (pp. 321-341). New York, NY: Cambridge University
Press.
Baer, J., & Kaufman, J. C. (2005). Bridging generality and specificity: The amusement park
theoretical (APT) model of creativity. Roeper Review, 27, 158-163.
Bindeman, S. (1998). Echoes of silence: A phenomenological study of the creative process.
Creativity Research Journal, 11, 69-77.
Carson, S. H., Peterson, J. B., & Higgins, D. M. (2005). Reliability, validity, and factor structure
of the creative achievement questionnaire. Creativity Research Journal, 17, 37-50.
Diakidoy, I. N., & Constantinou, C. P. (2001). Creativity in physics: Response fluency and task
specificity. Creativity Research Journal, 13, 401-410.
Domino, G. (1974). Assessment of cinematographic creativity. Personality and Social
Psychology, 30, 150-154.
Domino, G., & Giuliani, I. (1997). Creativity in three samples of photographers: A validation of
the adjective check list creativity scale. Creativity Research Journal, 10, 175-192.
Doyle, C. L. (1998). The writer tells: The creative process in the writing of literary fiction.
Creativity Research Journal, 11, 29-37.
New Phenomenology 22
Dudek, S. Z., & Hall, W. B. (1992). Personality consistency: Eminent architects 25 years later.
Creativity Research Journal, 4, 213-232.
Einstein, A. (1952). Letter to Jacques Hadamard. In Ghiseli, B. (Ed.), The creative process: A
symposium (pp. 32-33). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Epel, N. (1993). Writers dreaming: 26 writers talk about their dreams and the creative process.
New York, NY: Southern Books.
Feist, G. J. (2004). The evolved fluid specificity of human creative talent. In Sternberg, R. J.,
Grigorenko, E. L., & Singer, J. L. (Eds.), Creativity. From potential to realization (pp.
57-82). Washington, DC: American Psychologist Association.
Feist, G. J. (2005). Domain-specific creativity in the physical sciences. In Kaufmann, J. C., &
Baer, J. (Eds.), Creativity across domains: Faces of the muse (pp. 123-137). Hillsdale,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York, NY: Basic
Books.
Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century. New
York, NY: Basic Books.
Gero, J. S., & Kannengiesser, U. (2011). Design. In Runco, M. A., & Pritzker, S. R. (Eds.),
Encyclopedia of Creativity, Vol. 1 (A - I) (2nd ed., pp. 369-375). New York, NY:
Academic Press.
Goldschmidt, G. (1999). Design. In Runco, M. A., & Pritzker, S. R. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of
Creativity, Vol. 1 (Ae - H) (pp. 525-535). New York, NY: Academic Press.
New Phenomenology 23
Gödel, K. (1931). Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter
Systeme I [On formally undecidable propositions of Principia Mathematica and related
systems I]. Monatshefte für Mathematik und Physik, 38, 173-198.
Grant, S. (2013). Performing on aesthetics of atmosphere. Aesthetics, 23, 12-32.
Gruber, H. E. (1993). Creativity in the moral domain: Ought implies can implies create.
Creativity Research Journal, 6, 3-15.
Harris, T. (1999). Hannibal. London: William Heinemann.
Hayes, J. R. (1989). Cognitive processes in creativity. In Glover, J. A., Ronning, R. R., &
Reynolds, C. R. (Eds.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 135-145). New York, NY: Plenum.
Heidegger, M. (1998). Basic concepts (G. E. Aylesworth, Trans.). Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press. (Original work published 1981)
Helson, R., Roberts, B., & Agronick, G. (1995). Enduringness and change in creative personality
and the prediction of occupational creativity. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 69, 1173-1183.
Henderson, S. J. (2004). Product inventors and creativity: The finer dimensions of enjoyment.
Creativity Research Journal, 16, 293-312.
Holland, J. L. (1959). A theory of vocational choice. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 6, 35-
45.
Holland, J. L. (1973). Making vocational choices. A theory of careers. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.
Holland, J. L. (1997). Making vocational choices: A theory of vocational personalities and work
environments (3rd ed.). Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
New Phenomenology 24
Horng, J. S., & Hu, M. L. (2008). The mystery in the kitchen: The developmental process of
culinary creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 20, 221-230.
Horng, J. S., & Hu, M. L. (2009). The creative culinary process: Constructing and extending a
four-component model. Creativity Research Journal, 21, 376-383.
Hu, W., Shi, Q. Z., Han, Q., Wang, X., & Adey, P. (2010). Creative scientific problem finding
and its developmental trend. Creativity Research Journal, 22, 46-52.
Husserl, E. (1962). Ideas (W. R. B. Gibson, Trans.). London: Collier-Macmillan. (Original work
published 1913)
Kauffman, S. A. (2010). Reinventing the sacred. The science of complexity and the emergence of
a natural divinity. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Kaufman, J. C. (2002). Dissecting the golden goose: Components of studying creative writers.
Creativity Research Journal, 14, 27-40.
Kaufman, J. C. (2012). Counting the muses: Development of the Kaufman domains of creativity
scale (K-DOCS). Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 6, 298-308.
Kaufman, J. C., & Baer, J. (2004). Sure, i’m creative — but not in math!: Self-reported creativity
in diverse domains. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 22, 143-155.
Kohányi, A. (2005). Turning inward versus turning outward: A retrospective study of the
childhoods of creative writers versus journalists. Creativity Research Journal, 17, 309-
320.
Kuder, G. F. (1977). Activity interests and occupational choice. Chicago, IL: Science Research
Associates.
Kurtzberg, T. R. (1998). Creative thinking, a cognitive aptitude, and integrative joint gain: A
study of negotiator creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 11, 283-293.
New Phenomenology 25
Langewitz, W. (2007). Beyond content analysis and non-verbal behaviour — What about
atmosphere? A phenomenological approach. Patient Education and Counseling, 53, 319-
323.
Langewitz, W. (2009). A theory of psychosomatic medicine: An attempt at an explanatory
summary. Semiotica, 173, 431-452.
Lubart, T. I. (1994). Creativity. In Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.), Thinking and problem solving.
Handbook of perception and cognition (2nd ed., pp. 289-332). New York, NY: Academic
Press.
Ludwig, A. M. (1994). Mental illness and creative activity in female writers. American Journal
of Psychatry, 151, 1650-1656.
Ludwig, A. M. (1995). The price of greatness: Resolving the creativity and madness controversy.
New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Ludwig, A. M. (1998). Method and madness in the arts and sciences. Creativity Research
Journal, 11, 93-101.
Mace, M., & Ward, T. (2002). Modeling the creative process: A grounded theory analysis of
creativity in the domain of art making. Creativity Research Journal, 14, 179-192.
Mach, E. (1896). On the part played by accident in invention and discovery. The Monist, 6, 161-
175.
MacKinnon, D. W. (1962). The nature and nurture of creative talent. American Psychologist, 17,
484-495.
MacKinnon, D. W. (1965). Personality and the realization of creative potential. American
Psychologist, 20, 273-281.
New Phenomenology 26
Miron-Spektor, E., Erez, M., & Naveh, E. (2011). The effect of conformist and attentive-to-detail
members on team innovation: Reconciling the innovation paradox. Academy of
Management Journal, 54, 740-760.
Mozart, W. A. (1970). A letter. In Vernon, P. E. (Ed.), Creativity (pp. 55-56). Middlesex,
England: Penguin Books.
Nelson, B. (2011). Research: Phenomenology. In Runco, M. A., & Pritzker, S. R. (Eds.),
Encyclopedia of Creativity, Vol. 2 (J - Z) (2nd ed., pp. 299-303). New York, NY:
Academic Press.
Nelson, B., & Rawlings, D. (2007). Its own reward: A phenomenological study of artistic
creativity. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 38, 217-255.
Nelson, B., & Rawlings, D. (2009). How does it feel? The development of the experience of
creativity questionnaire. Creativity Research Journal, 21, 43-53.
Nemiro, J. (1997). Interpretive artists: A qualitative exploration of the creative process of actors.
Creativity Research Journal, 10, 229-239.
Patrick, C. (1935). Creative thought in poets. Archives of Psychology, 178, 1-74.
Patrick, C. (1937). Creative thought in artists. Journal of Psychology, 4, 35-73.
Patrick, C. (1938). Scientific thought. Journal of Psychology, 5, 55-83.
Perry, S. K. (2005). Flow and the art of fiction. In Kaufmann, J. C., & Baer, J. (Eds.), Creativity
across domains: Faces of the muse (pp. 23-40). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Piirto, J. (2005). The creative process in poets. In Kaufmann, J. C., & Baer, J. (Eds.), Creativity
across domains: Faces of the muse (pp. 1-22). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Poincaré, H. (1970). Mathematical creation. In Vernon, P. E. (Ed.), Creativity (pp. 77-90).
Middlesex, England: Penguin Books.
New Phenomenology 27
Pritzker, S. R., & Runco, M. A. (1997). The creative decision-making process in group situation
comedy writing. In Sawyer, K. (Ed.), Cretivity in performance (pp. 115-141). Greenwich,
CT: Ablex.
Rawlings, D., & Locarnini, A. (2007). Validating the creativity scale for diverse domains using
groups of artists and scientists. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 25, 163-172.
Root-Bernstein, R. S., Bernstein, M., & Garnier, H. (1995). Correlations between avocations,
scientific style, work habits, and professional impact of scientists. Creativity Research
Journal, 8, 115-137.
Rothenberg, A. (1996). The Janusian process in scientific creativity. Creativity Research
Journal, 9, 207-231.
Runco, M. A. (1993). Moral creativity: Intentional and unconventional. Creativity Research
Journal, 6, 17-28.
Runco, M. A. (2007). Creativity theories and themes: Research, development and practice. New
York, NY: Academic Press.
Sanders, P. (1982). Phenomenology: A new way of viewing organizational research. Academy of
Management Review, 7, 353-360.
Sawyer, K. (1992). Improvisational creativity: An analysis of jazz performance. Creativity
Research Journal, 5, 253-263.
Schmitz, H. (1965). System der Philosophie, Bd. II: Der Leib, 1. Teil: Der Leib [System of
philosophy, Vol. II: The felt body, Part I: The felt body]. Bonn, Germany: Bouvier
Verlag.
New Phenomenology 28
Schmitz, H. (1966). System der Philosophie, Bd. II: Der Leib, 2. Teil: Der Leib im Spiegel der
Kunst [System of philosophy, Vol. II: The felt body, Part II: The felt body as reflected in
art]. Bonn, Germany: Bouvier Verlag.
Schmitz, H. (1967). System der Philosophie, Bd. III: Der Raum, 1. Teil: Der leibliche Raum
[System of philosophy, Vol. III: The space, Part I: The corporeal space]. Bonn, Germany:
Bouvier Verlag.
Schmitz, H. (1969). System der Philosophie, Bd. III: Der Raum, 2. Teil: Der Gefühlsraum
[System of philosophy, Vol. III: The space, Part II: The emotional space]. Bonn: Bouvier
Verlag.
Schmitz, H. (1974). Das leibliche Befinden und die Gefühle [Corporeal health and emotions].
Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, 28, 325-338.
Schmitz, H. (1977). System der Philosophie, Bd. III: Der Raum, 4. Teil: Das Göttliche und der
Raum [System of philosophy, Vol. III: The space, Part IV: The divine and space]. Bonn,
Germany: Bouvier Verlag.
Schmitz, H. (1978). System der Philosophie, Bd. III: Der Raum, 5. Teil: Die Wahrnehmung
[System of philosophy, Vol. III: The space, Part V: The perception]. Bonn, Germany:
Bouvier Verlag.
Schmitz, H. (1980). System der Philosophie, Bd. V: Die Aufhebung der Gegenwart [System of
philosophy, Vol. V: The dissolution of the present]. Bonn, Germany: Bouvier Verlag.
Schmitz, H. (1994). Gefühle als Atmosphären und das affektive Betroffensein von ihnen
[Emotions as atmospheres and the affective involvement with them]. In Fink-Eitel, H., &
Lohmann, G. (Eds.), Zur Philosophie der Gefühle (2nd ed., pp. 33-56). Frankfurt,
Germany: Suhrkamp .
New Phenomenology 29
Schmitz, H. (2005a). Situationen und Konstellationen. Wider die Ideologie totaler Vernetzung
[Situations and constellations. Against the ideology of total interlinking]. Munich,
Germany: Karl Alber.
Schmitz, H. (2005b). Über das Machen von Atmosphären [On creating atmospheres]. In Blume,
A. (Ed.), Zur Phänomenologie der ästhetischen Erfahrung (pp. 26-43). Munich,
Germany: Karl Alber.
Schmitz, H. (2009). Kurze Einführung in die Neue Phänomenologie [Brief introduction to new
phenomenology]. Munich, Germany: Karl Alber.
Schmitz, H. (2010a). Bewusstsein [Consciousness]. Freiburg, Germany: Karl Alber.
Schmitz, H. (2010b). Die zeichenlose Botschaft [The signless message]. In Großheim, M., &
Volke, S. (Eds.), Gefühl, Geste, Gesicht (pp. 18-29). Freiburg, Germany: Karl Alber.
Schmitz, H. (2011). Der Leib [The felt body]. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Schmitz, H. (2013). Kreativität erleben [Experiencing creativity]. In Julmi, C. (Ed.), Gespräche
über Kreativität (pp. 17-42). Bochum, Germany: Projektverlag.
Schmitz, H. (2014). Phänomenologie der Zeit [Phenomenology of time]. Freiburg, Germany:
Karl Alber.
Schmitz, H., Müllan, R. O., & Slaby, J. (2011). Emotions outside the box — the new
phenomenology of feeling and corporeality. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences,
10, 241-259.
Sherrington, C. S. (1942). Man on his nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Simonton, D. K. (1988). Creativity, leadership, and chance. In Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.), The Nature
of creativity: Contemporary psychological perspectives (pp. 386-426). New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press.
New Phenomenology 30
Simonton, D. K. (1999). Creativity and genius. In Perwin, L. A., & John, O. P. (Eds.), Handbook
of personality (2nd ed., pp. 629-652). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Simonton, D. K. (2009). Varieties of (scientific) creativity: A hierarchical model of domain-
specific disposition, development, and achievement. Perspectives on Psychological
Science, 4, 441-452.
Snow, C. P. (1959): The two cultures and the scientific revolution. New York, NY: Cambridge
University Press.
Standley, J. M. (2008). Aesthetic responses and earliest memories: The differences between
music and literature. Creativity Research Journal, 20, 437-444.
Sternberg, R. J. (1988). A three-facet model of creativity. In Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.), The nature of
creativity. Contemporary psychological perspectives (pp. 125-147). New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press.
Sternberg, R. J. (2005). The domain generality versus domain specificity debate: How should it
be posed? In Kaufmann, J. C., & Baer, J. (Eds.), Creativity across domains: Faces of the
muse (pp. 299-306). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Sternberg, R. J., & Davidson, J. E. (Eds.) (1995). The nature of insight. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Stierand, M., Dörfler, V., & MacBryde, J. (2014). Creativity and innovation in haute cuisine:
Towards a systemic model. Creativity and Innovation Management, 23, 15-28.
Strong, E. K., Jr. (1943). Vocational interests of men and women. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press.
Sundararajan, L. (2004). Twenty-four poetic moods: Poetry and personality in Chinese
aesthetics. Creativity Research Journal, 16, 201-214.
New Phenomenology 31
Tchaikovsky, P. I. (1970). Letters. In Vernon, P. E. (Ed.), Creativity (pp. 57-60). Middlesex,
England: Penguin Books.
Thomson, P. (2011). Dance and creativity. In Runco, M. A., & Pritzker, S. R. (Eds.),
Encyclopedia of Creativity, Vol. 1 (A - I) (2nd ed., pp. 343-350). New York, NY:
Academic Press.
Torrance, E. P. (1988). The nature of creativity as manifest in its testing. In Sternberg, R. J.
(Ed.), The nature of creativity. Contemporary psychological perspectives (pp. 43-75).
New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Van Gogh, V. (1952). Letter to Anton Ridder Van Rappard. In Ghiseli, B. (Ed.), The creative
process: A symposium (pp. 46-47). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Wallas, G. (1926). The art of thought. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace.
Wertheimer, M. (1945). Productive thinking. New York, NY: Harper.
Woody II, R. H. (1999). The musician's personality. Creativity Research Journal, 12, 241-250.
Zervos, C. (1952). Conversation with Picasso. In Ghiseli, B. (Ed.), The creative process: A
symposium (pp. 48-53). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Top Related