What Does Imagination Have to Do with Creativity?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, imagination is “the ability of the mind to be creative or resourceful.” Thus, it is traditionally believed that creativity is the manifestation of the imagination. From the way in which we use the term "imagination," it appears that it is thought that the two can be equated; that telling someone to "be more creative" is exactly the same as saying, "use your imagination." That the imagination can be associated to creativity is clearly indubitable, but it is the type of association that is questionable. Does the imagination have a central role in creativity, or do we give it more credit for our creativity than it deserves?

Before we can investigate the link between creativity and the imagination, it must be stated first what constitutes creativity and secondly what we mean by the term "imagination." According to Gaut there are three conditions of creativity. First, creativity must be original. There would be no point in creating a sonnet in which I compare my love to a summer's day, as it would not be original. Even if I did, the sonnet would be of no value - the second condition of creativity. Kant has pointed out that even the most nonsensical work of art can be original, but it is not creative unless it is exemplary i.e. of value. The third condition of creativity is that it has to have flair; an artist must have the intention to create the work in that way. If I splatter ink across a page, it may be original, but since the end product is arrived at inadvertently, I (the artist) must have had no style or flair and thus it is not creative. Subsequently, in Gaut's words, “Originality, value and flair are the vital ingredients in creative making.”

There are a number of different uses of the term "imagination." First, "I imagine" can mean "I falsely believe" such as in a situation whereby a person is told that he is "imagining things" in the context that he has misperceived something. Secondly, "imagination" can be used as a close synonym for creativity (as in the sentence, "Use your imagination.") Finally, it is used to mean mental imagery, as in the case that someone is describing a person to me and I can imagine his face. Whilst all these definitions of imagination are correct within their contexts, it is widely agreed between philosophers that imagination cannot be defined in one way. It does not necessarily have to entail a false belief, nor does it need to involve mental imagery.

With these understandings of creativity and the imagination, it seems unlikely that creativity absolutely requires the imagination. This is also made clear by the two different types of creativity: passive and active. The former takes place when we are unaware of the creative process, when something creative is arrived at without much thought. For example, Russell claimed that when writing Principia Mathematica he would frequently go to bed not knowing the answer to a particularly troublesome problem, but would wake up the next morning able to solve it. By comparison, active imagination occurs when we attempt to find various works of creativity and consciously arrive at one. While this type of creative act requires the imagination, passive creativity proves that the imagination it not a necessity to creativity.

On the same level, many philosophers do not believe that every imagining absolutely requires creativity. If imagination is taken to mean a false belief, for example, then creativity is not a necessity; I can imagine that my car is going to be clamped in ten minutes, but by the stated conditions of creativity this imagining is neither original nor valuable enough to be "creative." Similarly, fantasising is a kind of imagining, but many of us have the same fantasies, so they also lack the conditions to earn the label "creative."

Thus, it is Gaut's view that there are only two ways in which we can credibly link the imagination to creativity. He named the first way the "display model," which maintains that my unconscious generates a creative idea to me through my imagination. This model appears to be present in passive creativity, for the imagination doesn't have a necessary role, but a display function. It can be compared to the monitor of a computer, which has the peripheral role of displaying the creative results of a computer, but does not aid the creation of the software. The second way, the "search model," is more apparent in active creativity, as it holds that the imagination has a central position in the creative procedure. Gaut states that, “according to this model, when one comes up with a new idea or invents a new object, one can be thought of as having worked through various possibilities ordered in a logical space.” In other words, the imagination is used to visualise several different outcomes before selecting and settling on the most relevant one. In this way, it is clear that Gaut believes that the imagination is suitable to be the vehicle of active creativity.

It is clear that associating the imagination with creativity is correct. However, our misuse of the term "imagination" in our everyday language has meant that the specific association has been construed. Because it is used as a near-synonym for creativity, they are frequently confused to mean the same thing; people equate having a vivid imagination with being extremely creative. In reality, the two cannot be equivalent, for as we have seen with the above example of Russell, it is possible to be exceptionally creative without using the imagination at all. Similarly, confusion has arisen from our understanding of the use of the imagination in active creativity; rather than being the source of creativity as it is often perceived to be from such an understanding, the imagination is in fact the vehicle for active creativity. Finally, because of our misuse of the term "imagination," it is always supposed that the imagination should have a central role in creativity, yet from Gaut's "display model" it is clear that in fact it can have a peripheral role. That there is a link between the imagination and creativity cannot be disputed; it is the traditional view equating the two with which I disagree.