Philosophy as an Aid to Invention and Creativity

Philosophy as an Aid to Invention and Creativity

Audio recording of a lecture given by Dave Shafer on March 27, 2024 as part of the Dean's Lecture & Concert Series. The Dean's Office has provided this description of the event: "The philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) was the founder of phenomenology, a field that led eventually to Sartre’s existentialism, among other offshoots. Phenomenology is a systematic way of investigating certain aspects of human experience. Psychologist Clark Moustakas (1902-1987) refined some of these techniques and developed transcendental phenomenology, mainly for therapeutic use. The goal is to have everything perceived freshly, as if for the first time. That means approaching an experience while devoid of prejudices, and any prior assumptions. As Husserl put it – “to go back to the things themselves” without ourselves, our personalities, and our history getting in the way of us having direct unmediated experiences. A quite unintended use of this idea turns out to be a very powerful way to approach problem solving in any field and to be more inventive and creative. We will show some examples of this in my own field of hi-tech optical system designs, which has led me to have over 200 patents so far, but mostly some every-day non-technical use will be demonstrated. The key is always to identify and question assumptions you have made."

Santa Fe, NM

2024-03-27

Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online.

sound

mp3

English

SF_ShaferD_Philosophy_as_an_Aid_to_Invention_and_Creativity_2024-03-27

m4a

01:05:58