Abstract:

The purpose of our paper is to examine the role of dichotomous thinking when generating knowledge outcomes. We present a Youtube by 18 students, each describing their creative process for one minute. Please see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF3yPG7Yj0c

The method in our paper is to “deconstruct” reflections of individuals portrayed in the Youtube. Upon viewing the film, we are examining the role of relational thinking by 18 individuals, creating knowing and knowledge of a particular phenomenon. Our paper along with its Youtube considers creativity and relational thinking from the position of what takes place “inside” and “outside” the mind and, more importantly, prioritises the former over the latter. Examples are given from interactions of individuals in groups of three.

Literature review:
Creative individuals are embedded in the greater social fields and symbolic domains that constitute a cultural system. Our understanding of relational thinking draws inspiration from the works of Lev Vygotsky and John Dewey, and their intellectual legacies concerning creativity, imagination, development, and artistic experience. Like Vygotsky, we start with the premise that every creator is necessarily a product of his or her time and environment. Vygotsky considers relational thinking as reuniting the individual and the social in creative expression. In a similar vein, John Dewey advocated transcending deep-seated dichotomies and oppositions. In Dewey’s view this dualism should be replaced by an image of coordination between perception and action in the process of continually adjusting to one’s environment. This intimate relation bringing together person and world and their constant exchanges is also the defining feature of what Dewey calls “human experience.”

Findings:
We advocate a relational type of logic, that encourages us to observe the interdependence between categories and ways in why they are embedded into each other. Our paper strives to argue and shows that relational ways of thinking are not only more appropriate for conceptualizing about a phenomenon but also relatively easy to formulate.

Conclusion:
Adopting a relational perspective to conceptualize helps build a new theoretical account of the phenomenon. This perspective aims to be more comprehensive, inclusive and dynamic compared to the established set of dichotomies that dominate the present. IT is a way of thinking that builds on existing developments. In the end, promoting a more holistic approach can make us more sensitive to the intricacies of creative expression and forces us to refine our methodological devices. It is not enough for instance to have methodological tools that study products and processes separately, we need to learn how to investigate their interconnection and continuous interplay in creative action. This would not only help us build better and more complete theories but also cultivate it as something more than a quality possessed by some selected few.

Keywords:

Creative Process, Dichotomous, Relational, Knowledge Outcome.