Creativity for Critical Thinkers (Anthony Weston)

This is a unique little book, written by a philosopher, is one of the few I have found that explicitly addresses the relationship between creativity and critical thinking, and offers exercises for developing creative thinking skills.

It is not a critical thinking textbook. It is intended as a supplementary text for a university or secondary-level critical thinking course, but it is well suited to self-study, and it should have applications in free-standing creativity courses too.

Weston defines creative problem-solving as the art of expanding possibility.

"It is the ability to cast a situation or challenge or problem in a new light and thereby open up possibilities in it that were not evident before. It is the art of finding unexpected space in problems that may seem totally stuck to everyone else. It is the ability to think "out of the box" while the rest of us barely recognize we are in a box."

The many examples in this short book will help to clarify why creativity is so essential for creative problem-solving, and why creative problem-solving is a fundamental component of critical thinking.