In Part 2 of Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking for Truth in the Sciences Rene Descartes, as a prelude to his ‘clearing away’ of prior philosophy, writes: [T]here is very often less perfection in works composed of several portions, and carried out by the hands of various masters, than inContinue reading “Descartes, The Planned City, And Misplaced Philosophical Desires”
Tag Archives: creativity
Freud On Group Production (And ‘Intellectual Property’)
In ‘Group Pyschology’, (Standard Edition, XVIII, 79; as cited in Peter Gay, Freud for Historians, Oxford University Press, 1985, pp. 150), Sigmund Freud writes: [A]s far as intellectual achievement is concerned, it remains indeed true that the great decisions of the work of thought, the consequential discoveries and solutions of problems, are possible only toContinue reading “Freud On Group Production (And ‘Intellectual Property’)”
Jed Perl On The Supposed Necessity Of Doubt For Art
In the course of a ‘The Emperor Has No Clothes’ style review of a retrospective of Jeff Koons‘ work–staged at the Whitney Museum last year–Jed Perl writes: Dada—whatever its deficiencies, and the fact is that it produced relatively little enduring art—was part of a tradition of doubt about the possibilities of art that is woven deepContinue reading “Jed Perl On The Supposed Necessity Of Doubt For Art”
V. S. Naipaul on Diversion and Inspiration
In “The Author’s Note”, a preface of sorts to The Return of Eva Peron with The Killings in Trinidad (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1980), V. S. Naipaul writes, These pieces…were written between 1972 and 1975. They bridged a creative gap: from the end of 1970 to the end of 1973 no novel offered itself toContinue reading “V. S. Naipaul on Diversion and Inspiration”
Michael Ondaatje, Divisadero and the ‘Hidden Presence of Others’
Michael Ondaatje‘s Divisadero is a wise book, elliptical and allusive in his distinctive style, one replaying close, attentive reading to its many lovely, lyrical lines, too many to excerpt and note. Here is one that hones in on a truth already known to those who create: Everything is biographical…What we make, why it is made,Continue reading “Michael Ondaatje, Divisadero and the ‘Hidden Presence of Others’”
The Physical Dimensions of Writing
Writing is a physical activity. This fact is quite well known to schoolchildren who write–with pencils and pens–diligently, and at length on their notebooks. (It must have been known too, to Georges Simenon, whose fingers must have needed dousing in ice water after his daily ritual of prolific pencil-fueled writing.) But it is even commonContinue reading “The Physical Dimensions of Writing”
Skyler White, The Anti-Muse?
Yesterday I wrote a short response to Anna Gunn‘s New York Times Op-Ed about the negative reaction to the Skyler White character on Breaking Bad. I want to add a couple of points to that today. Some of the adverse reaction to Skyler finds its grounding in her instantiation of an archetype that I alluded toContinue reading “Skyler White, The Anti-Muse?”
The ‘Anxiety of Influence’ and Scientific Discovery
In his essay on scientific discovery, ‘Scotoma: Forgetting and Neglect in Science’, Oliver Sacks writes: Darwin was at pains to say that he had no forerunners, that the idea of evolution was not in the air. Newton, despite his famous comment about ‘standing on the shoulders of giant,’ also denied such forerunners. This ‘anxiety ofContinue reading “The ‘Anxiety of Influence’ and Scientific Discovery”
‘Little Clouds’ and ‘Enemies of Ambition’
Children leave you little time for ‘work.’ Children are work. They displace priorities; many a career ambition runs aground on the shoals of their demands and needs. So goes an exceedingly common complaint, especially from those who consider themselves ‘creative types’: writers, artists and the like. As Cyril Connolly once noted, ‘That enemy of ambition,Continue reading “‘Little Clouds’ and ‘Enemies of Ambition’”
Constraints, Creativity, and Programming
Last year, in a post on Goethe and Nietzsche, which invoked the Freedom program (to cure Internet distraction), and which noted the role constraints played in artistic creation, I had referred obliquely to a chapter in my book Decoding Liberation, in which ‘Scott Dexter and I tried to develop a theory of aesthetics for software,Continue reading “Constraints, Creativity, and Programming”
Samir Chopra 