Creatology (Istvan Magyari-Beck)
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Creatology is an interdisciplinary science about the creative functions in their any possible respects and parts. This generalized domain and the term Creatology - as the name of the new domain - was first outlined, coined, proposed and introduced by a Hungarian scholar Dr. Istvan Magyari-Beck in his presentation "About the Necessity of Complex Creatology". The presentation was given on the International Sociology of Science Conference in Budapest, September 7-9, 1977. The material of this conference - and among them the article "About the Necessity of Complex Creatology" - was published in 1979, in the book “Sociology of Science and Research”, edited by Janos Farkas, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest (the fact that this book contains the papers of the above-mentioned Budapest conference is indicated on p. 4 of the book). The paper of Istvan Magyari-Beck is on the pp.175-182.
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Theoretical and pragmatical significance of creatology
A number of important problems, which could not even be posed correctly can be formulated and solved in the framework of Creatology. For example: the specializations of cultures (Magyari-Beck, 1981a), the measurement of creative products (Magyari-Beck, 1984a), the unique place of culture in anthropogenesis (Magyari-Beck, 2000), the social conditions of mental health (Magyari-Beck, in the process of elaboration), the language theory of arts (Magyari-Beck, 2006), creative paradigm in economy (Magyari-Beck, 1996), to mention just a few.
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The basis of taxonomy and the paradigm of creatology
The basis of taxonomy of Creatology is the Creatology Matrix (Magyari-Beck, 1984b, 1990). Creatology Matrix is a two dimensional logical space where the dimensions are levels and aspects of creative units. There are four levels of creative units in the Creatology Matrix: culture/civilization, organization, group and - finally - person. There are three aspects of creative units in the Creatology Matrix: ability, process and product. As the above-mentioned dimensions are orthogonal the architecture of the Creatology Matrix allows the meeting of every level with every aspect. As a result of this architecture, the sub-concepts of the aspects - ability, process and product - are stratified, which makes possible the contradictions within and among them. For example, a creative product, which is useful for organizations can be destructive for culture; or a problem-solving process by an individual personality can be either neutral or directly destructive for groups or organizations e.g. within certain professions in certain periods of time, and so on. The sub-concepts of the levels on the other hand can also be the manifestations of either products or process or abilities. For example, an organization can be regarded as a product (static view), as a process (dynamic view), as a result of ability (normative or selective view). The clash of approaches is also possible here. For example, there are enormous differences between the managers for whom the organization is a static entity and the managers for whom the organization is a dynamic entity. "Of all frameworks his (Istvan Magyari-Beck's – MB,I) was the most broad for the purposes of epistemology or classification" (Coleman, 1993. cites S.G. Isaksen on p. 119).
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