The Significance of Creativity for Teaching Philosophy

Abstract

Although creativity constitutes a central human ability that needs to be fostered in school, research in didactics of philosophy hasn’t so far developed accounts of how to train creativity systematically. In this paper I will provide the foundations for a didactics of creativity for philosophy and ethics education. The approach is based on the insight that creativity is an important competence to be promoted in philosophy and ethics classrooms. I will define the concept of creativity and review key empirical findings from the field of educational psychology and psychology of learning which will help me working out a framework for fostering creativity in the philosophy classroom. Central to this is the idea that creativity can only be taught if the use of creative task types is preceded by a phase of acquiring domain-specific philosophical and ethical competences and knowledge. I will then argue that this objective can be implemented particularly well through the design thinking method. In this context, task types that promote divergent thinking are particularly effective. I will use three classroom examples to illustrate how creativity could be fostered in philosophy and ethics classes.