Knowledge Engagement: The Creative Course Framework
A Framework of the Creative Life Theory
In April, I finished a Chinese book (draft) titled Knowledge Engagement: Knowledge Center and Creative Life Theory.
The 228-page book collects my 15 reading notes about Gaze, Actions, and the Social World (Ping-keung Lui, 2007). I also reflected on the following three projects while replaying Lui’s theory development journey.
- The Knowledge Engagement Project
- The Creative Life Framework
- The Theme of “Value Circle”
I adopted Lui’s theoretical approach to developing several new frameworks which form the Creative Life Theory (v2.0). One of these frameworks is called the Creative Course Framework. See the diagram below.
The Creative Course Framework was inspired by Lui’s Subjectivist Structuralism which is part of his theoretical sociology.
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).
Lui considers the following four realities for the grand theory:
- the Weberian course of action
- the Giddensian course of action
- Social Territory
- Symbolic Universe
The Realism is determined by the Ontology. According to Lui, “I made a distinction between action and its course; that is, action is not a reality but its course is. My justification is based on a fundamental ontology.” (p.251, 2016)
The Realism leads to the Hermeneutics which considers two parts: the actors’ interpretation and the researcher’s analysis.
The whole structure of the grand theory is represented by the following semiotic system.
What’s the value of such a complicated grand theory?
Ping-keung Lui aims to build a brand new theoretical sociology as a candidate for the paradigm of sociology. According to Lui, “There are three kinds of theories in sociology, namely, social theory, sociological theory, and theoretical sociology. ”
- Social theories are speculations about the social world. They constitute the speculative project of sociology.
- Some social theories are amenable to positivistic investigation under certain specific conditions. I call them sociological theories.
- Also, some other social theories, being very ambitious, attempt to recruit as many as they can sociological theories supporting themselves. I call them theoretical sociologies. They compete against each other. The winner becomes the paradigm of sociology, and its supporting sociological theories become exemplars of the paradigm. In this way, theoretical sociologies and sociological theories constitute the scientific project of sociology.
In fact, the term “Social theories” refer to all “Social Thoughts”, “Logs”, and “Ideology”, etc. For example, a political party’s ideology and a professional community’s knowledge framework are “Social theories” too. However, Lui only considers Sociological Theories and Theoretical Sociologies as scientific projects.
The Creative Life Theory (v2.0) can be seen as a new social theory for understanding knowledge creators’ life course. In this way, I adopted Lui’s subjectivist structuralism to generate the Creative Course framework.
The World of Activity as Course of Action
I use the “World of Activity” to refer to the course of action of creators. The term was inspired by social phenomenologist Alfred Schutz’s term “The World of Working”. You can find more details in Lifescope: The World of Activity for Creative Life Curation.
In order to distinguish the covert performances of mere thinking from those overt requiring bodily movements, Schutz called the latter Working. According to Schutz, Working refers to action in the outer world.
Working, thus, is action in the outer world, based upon a project and characterized by the intention to bring about the projected state of affairs by bodily movements. Among all the described forms of sopntaneity that of working is the most important one for the constitution of the reality of the world of daily life… The wide-awake self integrates in its working and by its working its present, past, and future into a specific dimension of time; it realizes itself as a totality in its working acts; it communicates with others through working acts; it organizes the different spatial perspectives of the world of daily life through working acts.
Source: Alfred Schutz on Phenomenology and Social Relations (1970, p.126)
The World of Working is one sub-world of the World of Daily Life or the Life-world. There are other sub-worlds in the Life-world. For example, the worlds of fantasy and dream.
In order to research creative life, I think it is important to consider the worlds of fantasy and dreams since they are significant sources of creative inspiration. Thus, I coined the term “World of Activity” in order to make a distinction between Schutz’s idea and my idea.
We can also use the “World of Activity” to describe creators’ Creative Careers.
The World of Works as Symbolic Universe
I use the “World of Works” to describe knowledge creations such as theories, concepts, frameworks, books, papers, etc.
Lui adopted the term “Symbolic Universe” from The Social Construction of Reality (Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, 1966). According to Berger and Luckmann, the term “Symbolic Universe” was used to describe the fourth level of legitimation.
The symbolic universe is conceived of as the matrix of all socially objectivated and subjectively real meanings; the entire historic society and the entire biography of the individual are seen as events taking place within this universe…On this level of legitimation, the reflective integration of discrete institutional processes reaches its ultimate fulfillment. A whole world is created. All the lesser legitimating theories are viewed as special perspectives o phenomena that are aspects of this world. (1966, p.96)
I consider the World of Works as a part of the Symbolic Universe.
Knowledge Center as Social Territory
I started working on the concept of “Knowledge Center” one year ago. Each knowledge center refers to a unique knowledge enterprise.
A knowledge center is a collective project that aims to develop certain unique knowledge. A “center” should have its own uniqueness in order to establish its identity and theme. Otherwise, there is no need to build a “center”.
A knowledge center can be seen as a three-level hierarchical structure. See the diagram below.
The above three-level hierarchy of knowledge center echoes Activity Theory’s hierarchical model.
The hierarchical structure of activity was originally conceptualized by A. N. Leontiev (1978). We have to notice that the goal of Leontiev was developing a psychological theory at the individual level with the concept of Activity. Thus, we will see three levels of activity correspond to three levels of psychological notions. The three levels of activity are activity, actions, and operations. The three levels of psychological notions are motive, goals, and conditions.
The three levels of knowledge centers roughly correspond to three levels of activity:
- Knowledge Center > Activity (Building Knowledge Enterprise Activity)
- Knowledge Projects > Actions (Develop Knowledge Frameworks)
- Knowledge Elements > Operations (Work on Pieces of Knowledge )
In a broad sense, the concept of “Knowledge Center” is part of the Creative Life Theory (v2.0). It can be seen as the creators’ Social Territory.
Creative Field as Social Context
Ping-keung Lui didn’t use the term “Social Context” in his 2007 book and his theoretical sociology. He suggested that the scientific projects of sociologists should focus on something (“?”) that is outside of subjective experience but corresponds to Social Territory which is inside subjective experience.
For the Creative Life Theory (v2.0), I used Creative Field to refer to something that corresponds to the creators’ Social Territory.
The term “Creative Field” was inspired by 1) French social theorist Pierre Bourdieu’s Field theory, and 2) Creativity research scholar Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Social Systems Model of creativity.
the sociocultural approach to creativity research highlights the issue of cultural context. Appropriateness is defined by social groups, and it’s culturally and historically determined. In order to understand the impact of social context, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and other researchers developed the Social Systems Model of creativity during the 1980s and 1990s. The diagram below shows the model contains three components: person, domain, and field. Csikszentmihalyi said, “Creativity occurs at the interface of three subsystems: An Individual who absorbs information from the culture and changes it in a way that will be selected by the relevant Field of gatekeepers for inclusion into the Domain, from whence the novelty will be accessible to the next generation.” (2014, p.166)
The Systems Model of Creativity is suitable for traditional domains such as art, science, film, performance, etc. However, the model is reliant on a stable set of gatekeepers as a Field and a bounded Domain which requires a stabilized social structure.
I didn’t use the Systems Model of Creativity for the Creative Life Theory. The term “Creative Field” roughly corresponds to the sum of “Domain” and “Field”.
