CALL: The Development of Creative Life Theory (2020–2023, Part 4)
From Creative Action to Creative Course
This is part of a series of articles about my journey of developing Creative Life Theory from 2020 to 2023.
- Part 1: First-wave Development
- Part 2: Second-wave Development
- Part 3: Third-wave Development
- Part 4: Three Themes of a Journey of Theory Building
- Part 5: Creative Dialogue and Mental Moves
- Part 6: Four Perspectives and Creative Identities
- Part 7: The World of Works and Five Possible Books
This article aims to discover a primary theme behind each phase.
Contents
- First-wave development: Expanding Units of Analysis
- Second-wave development: Supportive Theoretical Development
- Third-wave development: Strategic Thematic Exploration
- The Journey of Theory Building
Expanding Units of Analysis
The journey of developing the Creative Life Theory is fantastic. It was not planned but emerged from a network of creative projects and thematic conversations with my friends and mentors.
The primary theme in the First-wave development of Creative Life Theory is called Expanding Units of Analysis.
The first unit of analysis is “Creative Action”. Initially, I started with the Action-based Creativity project which produces the NICE Way framework and the “Process-as-Product” approach. See the diagram below.
After publishing the article about the NICE Way, I closed the project about Creativity in July 2020 and started the Knowledge Curation project in August 2020.
From 2021 to 2022, I developed a series of units of analysis. The new article went beyond the original idea of “Creative Action”, so I had to call it Creative Life.
- Creative Action
- Creative Project
- Creative Journey
- Creative Landscape
- Creative Lifescope
I didn’t intend to develop these units of analysis for the Creative Life Theory. They were born to satisfy the needs of the Creative Life Curation project.
In Oct 2022, I closed the Knowledge Curation project and started working on the Creative Life Curation project. I choose my journey of building the “Curativity” knowledge enterprise (2019–2022) as an example for the project. In order to understand the enterprise, I developed a tool called Thematic Landscape Map.
I also developed a method called Mapping Thematic Landscape.
Later, I developed more similar tools and methods. Eventually, I just made a set of tools and multiple units of analysis for Creative Life Theory.
Supportive Theoretical Development
The primary theme of the Second-wave development of Creative Life Theory is called Supportive Theoretical Development.
In this phase, I learned many ideas from Ping-keung Lui and his account of Theoretical Sociology. I also used his journey of developing the theory as an example of Creative Life Theory.
Traditional scholars tend to use the following structure in the field of social sciences: Ontology > Epistemology > Methodology.
- Ontology: What’s this?
- Epistemology: What’s the knowledge about this?
- Methodology: How do we actually know the knowledge about this?
This schema has its roots in Western Philosophy, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the pre-Socratics.
This is not “the one and the only” approach to building systematic thinking of knowledge engagement.
I adopted Lui’s “Ontology - Realism - Hermeneutics” schema as a new general structure for my theoretical development.
The structure of Lui’s theoretical sociology is a nested structure. See the diagram below. According to Lui, “The realism comprises a subjectivist structuralism and an objectivist stock of knowledge, while the hermeneutics is an interpretation and an analysis. Second, I shall present an ontology that nests the realism within its boundaries.” (p.250, 2016, Aspects of Sociological Explanation)
We should see this grand theory as a dialogue between philosophy and sociology because “Ontology” and “hermeneutics” are respectable terms in philosophy, but “realism” — sandwiched between them — is not. Lui emphasizes that Realism is the sociological matter proper (p.251, 2016, Aspects of Sociological Explanation).
As a grand theory, Lui’s theoretical sociology can be used as a frame to curate theoretical approaches and knowledge engagement in general.
For example, I used it as a meta-theory to curate three theoretical approaches (Specific Theories, sTheory) for the Life Strategy Project. See the diagram below.
The diagram below uses Lui’s nested structure to connect my four frameworks. It’s clear that these frameworks are located at different layers.
- Ontology: The Path of Creative Life and The Life — History Complex
- Realism: The Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) Framework
- Hermeneutics: The Creative Life Curation Framework
In 2023, I also adopted Lui’s Subjectivist Structuralism to develop the Creative Course framework as a meta-framework for the Creative Life Theory. See the diagram below.
What does it mean?
It means I framed the Creative Life Theory as a sociological theoretical project, especially the concept of the “World of Activity” and the concept of the “Knowledge Center”.
The original idea of “Creative Action” was born in the context of the psychological study of creativity. The new idea of “Creative Course” refers to the sociological perspective.
So, the Creative Life Theory is about both individual mental life and collective social life.
Lui is the founder of the Trojan Society for Theoretical Sociology and I am the founder of Curativity Center. The journey can be seen as a Supportive Collaboration between two knowledge centers. You can find more details in Value Circle #2: Engaging with Lui’s Theoretical Sociology.
What can we learn from the second-wave development of the Creative Life Theory?
“Supportive Life” and “Creative Life” are two sides of the same coin!
Strategic Thematic Exploration
The primary theme of the Third-wave development of Creative Life Theory is called Strategic Thematic Exploration.
The third-wave development started in July 2023. It is in the phase of early discovery.
If you follow me on Linkedin, you can find various themes behind my posts because I am working on a loose network of a set of themes.
For example, I started working on the “Situational Note-taking” project. The picture below is an example.
I worked on two levels of meaning-making. First, I developed an idea from a visual draft note to a long article. Second, I recorded the whole process and reflected on the process.
The above diagram is the final version of the above visual draft note. You can find more details in Themes of Practice: Concept, Activity, and Cognition.
What’s the relationship between this note and the Creative Life Theory?
It is about the concept of “World of Works” and the framework below.
It’s clear that knowledge creators’ creative life is a special case of the Themes of Practice approach because they have works that represent their life themes and creative themes.
The act of “Writing notes” is the basic operation of creative life, especially for knowledge creators.
The above discussion connects the Hermeneutics of Creative Life with the Creative Life Curation framework.
I also connect it with the Themes of Practice approach by adding “Theme” and “Practice” to the diagram. For a knowledge creator, the themes of his/her work are part of his/her life themes. His/her practice of running creative projects is part of his/her creative life.
As discussed in Part 2, two major projects in the third-wave development of Creative Life Theory are Theme(Concept) and Platform(Project).
Theme (Concept) is related to “World of Works”.
Platform(Project) is related to “Creative Field”.
Both are related to “Knowledge Center”.
If you want to know more about thematic creativity and thematic curativity, you can check out my book (draft) Thematic Exploration: The Early Discovery of Knowledge Engagement.
The Journey of Theory Building
What do other people’s journeys look like?
In 2005, Ken G. Smith and Michael A. Hitt edited a book titled Great Minds in Management: The Process of Theory Management. They invited a set of theorists in the field of organizational management research to share their stories of theory development. The summary is represented in the diagram below.
Smith and Hitt emphasized that the diagram doesn’t want to map the creative process into four separate linear stages, “… for many of our scholars the stages overlapped and often they moved back and forth through the stages as they developed their ideas.” (pp.573–583)
- Tension: The starting point for many of our scholars was a conflict or dissonance between the scholars’ firmly embedded viewpoint about management, organizations, and nature of the world, and an observation of phenomena that contradicted this viewpoint.
- Search: Levitt and March (1988) suggest that search is motivated to solve problems. Tension and dissonance led our masters to search for potential answers in order to reduce or eliminate the tension they experienced.
- Elaboration: The process by which scholars research and expand their ideas characterizes the elaboration stage of theory development. The process of elaboration is broadly described by our authors as detective work, induction, sensemaking, and research.
- Proclamation: The final phase of theory development is presenting the model and research to the various and appropriate constituencies. Although the presentation of one’s ideas or theory might seem relatively straightforward, our scholars generally struggled to get their new ideas accepted, especially in the top academic journals. Perhaps, because their ideas were new or the theory too encompassing, several of our scholars had to write a book to present their works.
They also discussed different roles that scholars can play in theory development and common individual characteristics of our scholars that affected the process of theory development.
Can we apply this framework to my journey of developing the Creative Life Theory?
The seed of the Creative Life Theory is the Action-based Creativity and the Process-as-Product approach. We could consider a “Tension” between them and traditional views of Creativity. The notion of “Creative Life” is the large edition of “Creative Action”. While my view accepts the uniqueness of Creative Works, I also emphasize the uniqueness of the Creative Life Course.
The above diagram can be used to discuss my “Search” process. From 2020 to 2023, I adopted several theories’ ideas as theoretical resources and worked with these ideas.
- In the field of Creativity Research, I applied Howard E. Gruber’s evolving systems approach to guide the Slow Cognition project and used it to manage my own creative projects. I also adopted Dean Keith Simonton’s Chance-configuration theory (Scientific Genius,1988) for the Mental Moves project.
- In the field of Activity Theory and Social Cognition, I adopted Andy Blunden’s approach to Activity Theory and Concept Theory as significant resources and developed the Project Engagement approach.
- In the field of Philosophy and Sociology, I adopted Ping-keung Lui’s theoretical sociology and related ideas to improve my knowledge frameworks. I also used them as tools to work on theoretical integration and knowledge curation.
- In the field of Ecological Psychology, I adopted James. J. Gibson’s Affordance Theory and Roger Barker’s Behavior Settings Theory as the starting points of the Ecological Practice approach.
In the process of “Elaboration”, I did case studies, made Semiotic System Diagrams, analyzed concepts and themes, developed knowledge frameworks, wrote books, etc.
The final phase of theory development “Proclamation” is presenting the theory to others. I often edited books (draft) as the final outcome of a theory-building journey. I also set up a Knowledge Center to host a unique knowledge enterprise in order to host a series of related knowledge projects around one theoretical approach.
Theory Building is a creative journey of turning pieces of ideas into a meaningful systematic whole. It likes playing jigsaw puzzles. You have to put various ideas into a frame, connect similar ideas, and assemble them together.
Every puzzle brings us a beautiful picture.
Creative Life Theory presents a picture of the Creative aspect of human life.
It also highlights the Supportive aspect of human life.
