Alison Hills: Are children creative?

This talk considers the verdicts that different philosophical analyses of creativity give in answer to the question ‘Are children creative?’.

I first look at the standard definition of creativity (‘novel and valuable’) and at variations on it from Boden, Gaut, and Brainard.  I then consider Hills and Bird’s non-standard view which makes imagination central to creativity. While the standard view, and especially the variants from Boden, Gaut and Brainard, are likely to answer “no” to the question of children’s creativity, the non-standard view makes it much more likely that children can be creative, indeed that they may be more creative than adults. I discuss whether children’s “pretence” is the same as the imagination required for creativity. I conclude with some remarks about the significance of childhood creativity.