| Abstract: | The purpose of this article is to carry out a philosophical enquiry into the affective nature of creative and innovative processes. Recent studies on future employment suggest that we are at an inflection point whereby any job is in principle at risk of being taken over by computers and robots in the near future. The jobs least at risk, it is suggested, are those that require creativity and innovation. It is still unclear why this is the case, and conceptualising creativity and innovation still presents a persistent problem within research. I present the argument that both the resistance to the automation of creative and innovative tasks and the resistance to conceptualising creative and innovative processes are due to creativity and innovation being processes that are affective in nature. Building on original theories of creativity and innovation, I develop the argument by enquiring into a structural similarity between affective judgement in creativity and innovation and Immanuel Kant's concept of aesthetic judgement. My enquiry suggests that the affective judgement processes of creativity and innovation are based on feelings of interest and desire (respectively), which corresponds to the feeling of pleasure in aesthetic judgement. The implication for education is that it becomes central to cultivate affective judgements on all levels of the educational system in order to prepare the younger generations for living and working in future society. |
