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? This talk considers the verdicts that different philosophical analyses of creativity give inanswer to the question ‘Are children creative?’. I first look at the standard definition ofcreativity (‘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 tocreativity. While the standard view, and especially the variants from Boden, Gaut andBrainard, are likely to answer “no” to the question of children’s creativity, the non-standardview makes it much more likely that children can be creative, indeed that they may be morecreative than adults. I discuss whether children’s “pretence” is the same as the imaginationrequired for creativity. I conclude with some remarks about the significance of childhoodcreativity.