The term creativity refers both to the activity of the individual person and to his creations, which from factors of his personal destiny become factors of culture. These creations, quests, and thoughts, separated from the life of the subject, can no more be properly explained in psychological categories than can blind nature. A mountain peak can inspire a painting, a poem, or a geological work; but in each case, these works, inasmuch as they are created objects, can no more be the subject matter of psychology than the mountain peak itself. A scientific-psychological analysis is properly concerned with something quite different: the ways the mountain peak is perceived, the acts, motivations, inter-personal relations, and the structure of the personality of those who reproduce the mountain peaks by means of art or in the concepts of the earth sciences. The effect of these acts and relations is recorded in artistic and scientific creations, thereafter becoming part of a domain that is not independent of the mental organization of the subject.
Read full abstract