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Topic description / abstract:

This presentation explores the sources of creativity, knowledge creation, and innovation by framing them as socio-epistemic and material activities, emphasizing the interaction between cognitive systems and their material and social environments. Departing from traditional views, we adopt enactivist concepts such as participatory sense-making, engaged epistemology (De Jaegher), and Material Engagement Theory (Malafouris), suggesting that creative processes involve active interaction with the world, leading to the emergence of novelty. This challenges the classic (mostly hylomorphic) understanding of creativity and knowledge creation, as „creative agency“ is—at least in part—shifted from the creator’s mind to the environment and to interacting/engaging with an unfolding world. Abandoning (epistemic) control in favor of openness to and engaging with emerging affordances and (future) potentials is key in such an approach. Creative activities will be conceived as processes of co-becoming, undergoing, and correspondence with the world (e.g., Ingold). In this context, the concept of resonance introduces a future-oriented and sustainable development perspective, as the involved systems co-create their future in the form of mutually beneficial environments and niches. The presentation discusses theoretical foundations and practical consequences, advocating for alternative cognitive skills, attitudes, and environmental structures to foster co-creation with an evolving world.

Biographical note:

Markus Peschl is Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Vienna. His research is driven by the question how novelty and innovation come into the world. His research areas include innovation, knowledge creation, cognitive science, organizational design and strategy, futures literacy, design, and Enabling Spaces. He is one of the founders of the inter-faculty interdisciplinary Cognitive Science Hub at the University of Vienna and the director of the international Middle European Joint Masters Program in Cognitive Science. Markus spent several years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, San Diego and the University of Sussex. He is co-founder and CSO of theLivingCore Innovation and Knowledge Architects and holds several visiting professorships at European universities. Markus Peschl has published more than 160 articles  and six books.

For further information see: https://homepage.univie.ac.at/franz-markus.peschl/