Conference

The First All-Russian Scientific conference “Philosophy of Creativity”, Moscow, April, 8-9, 2015. Institute of Philosophy,  Russian Academy of Sciences.

The Conference was devoted to the most significant philosophical problems of creative processes’ investigation. Not only contributors from various academic institutions (Institute of Philosophy RAS, Scientific Counsel on the Problems of Artificial Intelligence RAS, etc.), but also participants from the most eminent  high schools’  relevant departments  (M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Saint-Petersburg State University, P.I. Chayckovsky Moscow State Conservatory, M.I. Glinka Nizhniy Novgorod State Conservatory, Ivanov State University of Chemisrty and Technology, ect) had successfully contributed to the scientific outcome of the  above-mentioned conference. The work of the conference proceeded in the formats of the Plenary sessions, panel discussions and the workshop for young scientists and post-graduate students. To ensure the smooth running of the conference’s presentations, audio- and video computer facilities had been widely used. At the focus of the Plenary session of the conference, chaired by N.M. Smirnova, there appeared, first of all, the matter of definition of “creativity” concept. Two basic alternatives opposed to each other had been scrutinized in the framework of the Plenary discussions. On the one hand, “creativity” was acknowledged as innovative activity irrespective to whether it took place in nature or society. From this point of view, synergetics of the first order should be viewed as creative processes’ universal methodology. On the other hand, creativity may (and should) be restricted to human socio-cultural activity exclusively - namely, as meaning constitutive process. It had been argued, that both points of view could be considered as having definite heuristic power, but in different ways. The former tacitly widened the content of the concept, while the latter focused investigator’s attention on human reason, activity and social organization. The subject matter of the conference varied from logical dimensions of creativity process (A.V. Smirnov, correspondent member RAS, now director Iph. RAS) to applied aspects of creativity in psychology, artistic and pedagogic practice. Philosophical analysis of creativity proved to be conceptual framework of interdisciplinary synthesis of both socio-humanitarian and neuro-philosophical approaches. As K.V. Anokhin argued the new, neuro-philosophical approach allows not only single out the regions of  brain, “responsible” for creativity of our thinking, but also to understand, how our brain’s hyper-network operated to produce creativity effects. Continuing the topic, T.V. Chernigovskaya argued, that there could not be found any universal means to solve creative problem. She stressed the significance of the so-called random episodic silent thought (REST) for cognitive mechanism of creativity processes’ study. It had been argued, that contemporary investigations in complexity subject could also greatly contribute to interdisciplinary researches of creativity processes. The conference has given rise to the process of creativity’s investigation in mutual interdependency of both epistemological and socio-cultural dimensions. For this reason due attention had been paid to joint language of interdisciplinary research, i.e. commonly shared corpus of the concepts and metaphors. The Program Committee shared precondition, that the same concept (metaphor), used to study creative processes, shifts its meanings being transferred into the new disciplinary context. Panel “round-table” discussion (A.Y. Alekseev and Y.Y. Petrunin, coordinators) was devoted to the problems concerning artificial intelligence’s creativity.  It was stressed, that artificial intelligence’s investigations were actually based upon the study of computer means of imitation, modeling and reproduction of creativity. The participants had come to the conclusion, that creative neuro-computing could ensure wider possibilities for imitation productive creativity, if compared with lingua-computing.  To resume, the First All-Russian scientific-theoretical conference “Philosophy of Creativity” had successfully given rise for philosophy of creativity as the framework of interdisciplinary study of creative processes of human reason, activity and  artificial intelligence.