Lecturer: Markus F. Peschl
Fields: knowledge creation, innovation, creativity, enactive cognition
Content
The guiding question for this course will be: How do novel knowledge and innovation, or generally speaking, novelty come into the world?
More specifically, we will take a closer look at foundations and perspectives of creativity, knowledge creation, and innovation. We propose to understand them as socio-epistemic processes that unfold in interaction between a (group of) cognitive system(s) and its (material) environment leading to the creation of artifacts. Moreover, we will discuss what it means to bring forth novel and sustainable knowledge/innovations in a future-oriented manner both on an individual and collective/organizational level as well as what are enabling (environmental) factors and conditions supporting such processes („Enabling Spaces“).
In discussing and questioning classic approaches to creativity and innovation, we will follow concepts that are inspired by the enactivist approach to cognition, such as De Jaegher’s et al. (2007, 2021) participatory sense-making or engaged epistemology, as well as Malafouris’ (2013) Material Engagement Theory. They suggest that, in a creative process, a (group of) cognitive/creative agent(s) does not primarily pursue a hylomorphic activity of imposing their own preconceived ideas/knowledge on the world/matter, but engage in a process of “creative thinging“ (Malafouris 2014). In other words, this means that by actively engaging with the world, making sense of it, and (co-)creating „things“/artifacts (→ „thinging“), one taps into not yet realized unfolding (future) potentials or „learns from the future as it emerges“ (Scharmer 2016); the becoming of reality turns into a source for novelty/novel knowledge.
This turns the classic understanding of creativity and knowledge creation on its head, as „creative agency“ is—at least in part—shifted from the creator’s mind to the environment and to interacting/engaging with the world.
This entails that (epistemic) control has to be given up (or at least reduced) in favor of openness to the affordances and potentials of a world in becoming. Creative activities have to be conceived as processes of co-becoming, undergoing, and correspondence with the world (e.g., Ingold 2013, 2014). We will discuss theoretical issues as well as (practical) consequences of such a perspective in terms of necessary alternative cognitive skills, mindsets/attitudes, and enablers, such as developing a sense for potentials, openness, „epistemic humility“, or enabling environmental (infra-)structures, etc.
Literature
- De Jaegher, H. and E. Di Paolo (2007). Participatory sense-making. An enactive approach to social cognition. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 6(4), 485–507.
- De Jaegher, H. (2021). Loving and knowing: reflections for an engaged epistemology. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 20(5), 847–870.
- Ingold, T. (2013). Making. Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge.
- Ingold, T. (2014). The creativity of undergoing. Pragmatics & Cognition 22(1), 124–139.
- Ingold, T. (2022). Creation beyond creativity. In T. Ingold (Ed.), Imagining for real. Essays on creation, attention and correspondence, pp. 15–28. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge.
- Malafouris, L. (2013). How things shape the mind. A theory of material engagement. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- Malafouris, L. (2014). Creative thinging: The feeling of and for clay. Pragmatics & Cognition 22(1), 140–158.
- Peschl, M.F. (2019). Design and innovation as co‐creating and co‐becoming with the future. Design Management Journal 14(1), 4–14.
- Peschl, M.F. (2020). Theory U: From potentials and co-becoming to bringing forth emergent innovation and shaping a thriving future. On what it means to \”learn from the future as it emerges\”. In O. Gunnlaugson and W. Brendel (Eds.), Advances in Presencing, pp. 65–112. Vancouver: Trifoss Business Press.
- Scharmer, C.O. (2016). Theory U. Leading from the future as it emerges. The social technology of presencing (second ed.). San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Lecturer
Markus F. Peschl (*1965) is professor of cognitive science and philosophy of science at the University of Vienna, Dept. of Philosophy. His areas of research and expertise include innovation and alternative approaches to creativity, cognitive science (4E/enactive cognition), organizational theory and strategy, design, and spaces for knowledge- and innovation work (Enabling Spaces). He is one of the founders of the inter-faculty interdisciplinary Vienna Cognitive Science Hub and the head of the International Middle European Joint Masters Program in Cognitive Science (MEi:CogSci) and the Extension Curriculum on Innovation & Knowledge Creation. Markus is head of the OCKO – Organizing Cognition in Knowing Organizations Research Group. He spent several years at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD, cognitive science, neuroscience, and philosophy department) and at the University of Sussex for post-doctoral research. Furthermore, he studied philosophy in France. He is co-founder and CSO of the theLivingCore Innovation and Knowledge Architects and holds several guest professorships at European Universities.
Affiliation: University of Vienna | Dept. of Philosophy & Vienna Cognitive Science Hub
Homepage: https://homepage.univie.ac.at/franz-markus.peschl/