Against creativity

In any academic discipline or sub-discipline there are works that achieve an iconic status: works which represent by exemplification the standards which can apply within this particular area. Such works do not, of course, necessarily offer definitive answers to problems within the area, for there may be no such answers. Nor are they necessarily correct as far as they go; for they may get it wrong in quite spectacular ways. But if they do their mistakes are the mistakes of the talented and committed practitioner and they remain instructive even if in error. Rather, such works demand to be taken seriously by any who wish to take the discipline itself seriously and they demand to be addressed by any who would give proper consideration to the problems dealt with in the work in question. Until recently if I had been asked to recommend such work within Philosophy of Education I would have, almost without hesitation, indicated the work which was done by four philosophers of education concerning the definition of "creativity" and the place of this concept within our ideas about education. I now think that such a recommendation would be seriously wrong-headed and in what follows I hope to show why I have changed my estimation.