About Us

The Foundation for the Philosophy of Creativity and its affiliated Societies for the Philosophy of Creativity were founded by a group of scholars interested in the mysterious and fundamental character of creativity. Since the idea of creativity arose as a fundamental question in the philosophies of Bergson, Whitehead, Henry Nelson Wieman, and numerous others who have been labeled “process philosophers,” the FPC and its societies often engage that tradition. However, as conceived by William S. Minor (pictured left), the founder and long-time leader of the group, “creativity” should be studied with every method we possess, and our research should be open, pluralistic, and forward-looking.

Thus, FPC has undertaken many kinds of programs and supported many forms of research over the last six decades. It has organized meetings regularly at the Eastern and Central Division meetings of the American Philosophical Association for its full history, with active Societies for the Philosophy of Creativity affiliated with each division. FPC has organized sessions at the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, and at numerous gatherings sponsored by the Center for Process Studies. FPC is part of the International Process Network. In 2002 the FPC sponsored a major conference, Frontiers of Creativity, as Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

The FPC has also been responsibility for a number of publications, including volumes on creativity in the thought of Geirge Herbert Mead, Henry Nelson Wieman, Charles Harsthorne, and Paul Tillich. The papers and records of hundreds of lectures and talks are held in Special Collections of the Morris Library of Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

In 2012, the FPC began a periodic lecture series, named in honor of its long-time member and officer Lewis S. Hahn. This series will be expanded into a mini-conference beginning in 2018. Also beginning in 2018 is the FPC Dissertation Fellowship to promote dissertation work in the area of creativity. Both of these programs are undertaken in coordination with the American Institute of Philosophical and Cultural Thought, Murphysboro, Illinois.

Bill Minor wrote a history of the organization in 1983, which is available here.

Dr. Corey McCall Dr. Corey McCall taught philosophy for a number of years at Elmira College in upstate New York. He is currently a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Literatures in English at Cornell and an instructor for the Cornell Prison Education Program. He has published widely on figures in Continental and American philosophical traditions and his current research focuses on issues in aesthetics, ethics, and the philosophy of race. His recent work includes the co-edited volumes Melville Among the Philosophers (2017) and Benjamin, Adorno, and the Experience of Literature (2018), and a volume co-edited with Philip McReynolds, Decolonizing American Philosophy (SUNY, 2021).

Dr. Pete (A.Y.) Gunter is among the founding members of the Foundation of the Philosophy of Creativity. He also founded the philosophy department at North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas) in 1969. With Max Oelschlaeger he transformed the department there in 1986 into the nation’s first program in environmental philosophy. His books include Bergson and the Evolution of Physics (1969), The Big Thicket: A Challenge for Conservation (1972), Bergson and Modern Thought (1986), The Big Thicket: An Ecological Reconsideration (1986), Henri Bergson: A Bibliography (1974, 1986, now updated in Presses Universitaires de France online), Texas Land Ethics (1997), and Finding the Big Thicket: A Cartographic Approach (2016). Professor Gunter was instrumental in the creation and enlargement of the Big Thicker National Preserve, the first biological preserve in the history of the National Park Service and the first use stream corridors a fundamental to a park’s structure. He writes novels and has been caught composing music.

Dr. Randall E. Auxier is a professor of philosophy and communication studies at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. He is the editor of the Library of Living Philosophers. He edited the journal The Personalist Forum 1997-2006, when he and John Shook transformed it into The Pluralist, and he remained Editor in Chief until 2012. Dr. Auxier authored Time, Will and Purpose (2013), Metaphysical Graffiti (2017), As Deep as It Gets: Movies and Metaphysics (2022), and Logic: From Images to Digits (2022). He co-authored wth Gary L. herstein The Quantum of Explanation: Whitehead’s Radical Empiricism (2017). His edited and co-edited volumes include God, Process and Persons (2000), Critical Responses to Royce (2000), Bruce Springsteen and Philosophy (2006), The Wizard of Oz and Philosophy (2008), and Tom Petty and Philosophy (2019), Rorty and Beyond (2020), and Queen and Philosophy (2023). He and John Shook oversee the American Philosophical and Cultural Thought book series, State University of New York Press.

Dr. Myron M. Jackson is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Western Carolina University. He previously held the Besl Chair of Ethics, Religion, and Society at Xavier University in Cincinnati, and also taught at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. He specializes in process and continental philosophical traditions, philosophy of culture, and philosophical anthropology. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in Political Science and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. His current research focuses on ironic relations at the heart of American exceptionalism, along with the influence of European pragmatism in the works of Peter Sloterdijk and Bruno Latour. He was resident fellow for the summer of 2021, May 15 to August 1. He has given two AIPCT lectures here and here.