Over the past two decades, the number of studies of creativity has in creased enormously. Although these studies represent a wide variety of perspectives, the largest proportion of them falls within the province of the social and behavioral sciences. Perhaps this is due to the impetus of experimental psychologists, who recognized the special problems that arise when originality is treated under a general theory of cognition. But what ever the reason, human creativity has come to be viewed as one of the major concerns of the twentieth century. It has been referred to as the most pressing problem of our time. In spite of the importance of the topic, few philosophers have either analyzed or speculated systematically about creativity, as a distinct topic. This neglect may be the expression of a tacit and sometimes explicit con viction that creativity must be taken for granted and not subjected to analytic scrutiny. In any case, the determination of so many behavioral and social scientists not to fall behind in the search for understanding creativity has led to a proliferation of publications that are unrelated to one another and that lack dearly ordered and reflective consideration of what creativity is. Too few writers have either acknowledged or examined what they presuppose about creative acts, about human activity, and a bout the nature of explanation when they focus on so complex a phenome non as creativity.

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Introduction: The Problem, its Background, and a Sketch of its Treatment.- I. Production and Radical Creation.- A. Novelty Proper.- 1. Individuality and Radical Newness.- 2. Form.- a. Form, structures, and valuation.- b. Form and novelty, some problems and puzzles.- B. Novelty Proper and Creative Acts.- 1. Imitation and Craftsmanship.- 2. Creative Process and Critical Control.- 3. Creative Achievement and Duplication of Novelty.- C. Value and Creativity.- 1. Instrumental Value.- 2. Instrumental Value and Tradition.- 3. Inerent Value.- II. Spontaneity: The Paradox and the Possibility of Explanation.- A. General Remarks about Explanation.- B. The Paradox of Creativity.- 1. Whitehead and Explanation.- 2. The Paradox in the Context of the Husserlian Account of Consciousness.- 3. Nicolai Hartmann's Acknowledgement of the Radical Puzzle.- C. The Reality of Spontaneity and the Challenge of Determinism.- 1. Positivism.- 2. Teleological Determinism.- 3. Mechanistic Determinism.- D. Intelligibility and the Resources of Language.- III. Language and the Aesthetic Structure of Novelty.- A. Originative Speech as Oblique Expression.- 1. Language and Speech.- 2. Speech and Implements.- B. Speech and Metaphors.- 1. Indirect Speech and Metaphor in Art, Science, and Philosophy.- 2. Metaphors and the Organic Character of Art.- 3. Metaphors as Constitutive Negations.- 4. Metaphors and "Family Resemblances".- C. Metaphors and the Intelligibility of Created Objects.- 1. Metaphorical Expression and Paradox.- 2. The Structure of Novelty.- 3. Intelligibility and Familiarity.- IV. Fundamental Paradox and Intelligibility.- A. The Absurd.- B. Two Loci of the Absurd.- C. The Second Model of Intelligibility.- D. The Possibility of a Third Model of Intelligibility.