Dimensions of Creativity

edited by Margaret A. Boden

MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1996. 243 pp.,
Paperback, $14.00. ISBN: 0-262-52219-5.

Reviewed by Wilfred Niels Arnold

Some creative people are appreciated in their lifetimes. Others are recognized much later, often with reluctant and belated praise. As Jonathan Swift remarked, "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." For these reasons, and others more academic, understanding the very nature of creativity is an intriguing and worthwhile goal.

Those that have chosen to work in this field have usually been as lonely as their subjects. The number of books seems remarkably small, although every now and then these scholars are invited to arts and humanities symposia, and thence to publish in proceedings, as token representatives on the processes of discovery. The present volume is relatively unique in that it arose from a special project in which an interdisciplinary group of investigators was sponsored for five years by the Renaissance Trust. This book, eight chapters by seven contributors, is the fruit of that labor.

Margaret Boden, School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences, University of Sussex, is the editor and in the introductory piece declares that there are many differences among the themes and approaches of the chapters. This is true. The format is too small to expect an encyclopedic coverage but a decent review of the literature is missing and the volume ends up as a bit of a jumble. In sum, it will strike most readers as more of a progress report to the sponsor from the funded members of the self-styled Achievement Project.

The conjuncture of creativity and mental illness has been bandied around with some pretense at quantification since the last half of the 19th century (Cesare Lombroso). Bipolar affective disorder is a 20th century favorite in some circles and long lists of artists and scientists, deemed to have suffered from this disorder, have been assembled and pushed by disciples of this poorly founded exercise. In the final chapter of Dimensions of Creativity, Hans Eysenck, embraces this working hypothesis and extends it. He offers a curve depicting the proportion of the general population plotted against a continuum of psychic states ranging from empathy and altruism, through conformity, to manic depressive disorder and schizophrenia. This quasi-mathematical graph has the charm associated with drawing in the sand with a pointed stick, but less precision.

I believe that the consensus of serious studies suggests that there is no cause and effect relationship between insanity and creativity, but that some forms of mental illness are not incompatible with creativity in the long run. Moreover there is no indication of sickness being a prerequisite. On the contrary, frank or masked neurotic tendencies are the bane of creativity. The productivity of scientists and artists with episodic illness is usually associated with their periods of wellness.

The index is deficient; there are only 39 entries. This is inexcusable because the construction of a useful index, once the function of special editors, is now greatly facilitated by word processors. The book is nicely produced and has a very attractive cover. However, the excitement of the title and the promise of a more quantitative approach are not delivered by the contents.