Ideas are the basic building blocks that construct the world we live in. Yet despite the abundance of literature on creativity and innovation, there has been little reflection on ideas as such, their nature and their working mechanisms. This book provides foundations for a reflection focused specifically on ideas - what they are, how they emerge, develop, interact, gain acceptance and become translated into actions. In doing so the book moves beyond the mainstream approaches, offering new, promising theoretical angles, presenting original findings and initiating a research agenda for a science of ideas. This book provides a fresh perspective on how to conceptualize and study ideas and their working mechanisms by treating ideas as the main object of the study and by bringing together a group of original thinkers, scholars, and philosophers to move beyond the mainstream academic discourse on creativity and innovation.

List of figures and tables

Introduction
Rico Sneller
Jungian Institute & Mandeville Academy, Netherlands
Guido Enthoven
Institute for Social Innovation, Netherlands
Seweryn Rudnicki
AGH University of Science and Technology, Krakow, Poland

PART I. WHAT ARE IDEAS?

Chapter 1 Towards a science of ideas
Guido Enthoven
Institute for Social Innovation, Netherlands

Chapter 2 What is an idea? Between synchronicity and opacity
Rico Sneller
Jungian Institute & Mandeville Academy, Netherlands

Chapter 3 Aspects of ideas
Kathrin Bouvot
University of Vienna, Austria
Gianluigi Segalerba
Working group for cultural analysis, University of Vienna, Austria

Chapter 4 The impact of ideas on bodily processes. Lessons from mantra techniques
Tatjana Kochetkova
O. P. Jindal Global University, New Delhi, India

Chapter 5 What are ideas made of? On ideas as socio-material, relational and dynamic beings
Seweryn Rudnicki
AGH University of Science and Technology, Krakow, Poland

PART II. HOW DO IDEAS EMERGE?

Chapter 6 A short history of deliberate creativity
Han van der Meer
Saxion University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands
Willemijn Brouwer
Delft University of Technology, Netherlands

Chapter 7 Where are ideas created? From creative spaces to landscapes of creation
Jacek Gądecki
AGH University of Science and Technology, Poland

Chapter 8 Cultures and innovations: How cultural factors affect the emergence of ideas
Seweryn Rudnicki
AGH University of Science and Technology, Krakow, Poland
Piotr Prokopowicz
Jagiellonian University, Poland

Chapter 9 Towards a parapsychic generation of ideas
Alexandre Zaslavsky
Federal Institute of Paraná (IFPR), Brazil; journal Interparadigmas

Chapter 10 Ideas as interactors and replicators
Łukasz Jonak
Digital Economy Lab, University of Warsaw, Poland

Chapter 11
Idea creation in a post-pandemic world
Łukasz Afeltowicz
AGH University of Science and Technology, Poland

PART III. HOW DO IDEAS EXIST, EVOLVE, AND TRANSLATE INTO ACTION?

Chapter 12 Ideas in science and art: Creativity and imagination
Laurens Landeweerd
Radboud University’s Institute for Science in Society, Netherlands; HogeSchool Zuyd’s Faculty of Art, Netherlands

Chapter 13 Travelling leadership ideas as a business virus infection
Birgit Helene Jevnaker
BI Norwegian Business School, Norway
Johan Olaisen
BI Norwegian Business School, Norway

Chapter 14 Ideas and the Law
Rudi Holzhauer
Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands; Of counsel TLG lawyers Amsterdam, Netherlands
Sander Gellaerts
Leiden University, Netherlands; Virtual company SanderTeg

Chapter 15 New materialism and climate change adaptation
Jurgen van der Heijden
GovernEUR; Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands

Chapter 16 How do ideas change the world? Patterns in social innovation
Guido Enthoven
Institute for Social Innovation, Netherlands

Chapter 17 Plato’s hunt for an idea: Socratic dialogue and idea-formation
Jos Kessels
Independent Scholar

Conclusion: Next steps for a science of ideas
Seweryn Rudnicki
AGH University of Science and Technology, Krakow, Poland
Han Bakker
Bureau DenkWerk; Yew Magazeeen
Guido Enthoven
Institute for Social Innovation, Netherlands
Rico Sneller
Jungian Institute & Mandeville Academy, Netherlands
Raoul Jorissen
Rotterdam School of Management,
Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands

Biographies

Name index

Subject index

Guido Enthoven graduated in Law at the University of Leiden. His PhD was an investigation on information between government and parliament (University of Tilburg, 2011). He is the author of around 100 articles about interaction, innovation, democracy and information published in journals, magazines and newspapers. Guido Enthoven co-founded the National Ideas Line in 1991 and shortly thereafter founded the Institute for Social Innovation (IMI). As the director of IMI, he advises dozens of ministries and municipalities on dialogues, participation and innovation. At IFKAD 2018, he held a keynote ‘Towards a Science of Ideas’ and he wrote a Dutch historical novel on the topic.

Seweryn Rudnicki (AGH University of Science and Technology) is an assistant professor in sociology and a co-founder and partner at Hearts & Heads, a creativity and innovation consultancy. His main academic interests are related to the use of social scientific knowledge in different areas of practice, design and creativity studies.

Rico Sneller is a lecturer of philosophy at the Mandeville Academy and the Jungian Institute. Previously, he taught continental philosophy and ethics at the Leiden Faculty of Humanities, Institutes for Philosophy & Religious Studies, and the Technical University of Eindhoven. He is the Vice President of the global think tank and network organisation, Alternative Perspectives & Global Concerns (AP-GC), and responsible for strategic planning and policy-making for the network as a whole. He is active on various boards, both nationally and internationally. His current research focuses on exceptional states of consciousness in relation to philosophy. Among others, he published 'Perspectives on Synchronicity, Inspiration, and the Soul' (Cambridge Scholars 2021) and 'Wild Beasts of the Philosophical Desert. Philosophers on Telepathy and Other Exceptional Experiences' (Cambridge Scholars 2014, with Hans Gerding and Hein van Dongen). Together with Mahmoud Masaeli (Ottawa University), he edited a series of books on global ethics, development, and spirituality.

Creative problem solving, brainstorming, ideation, ideology, ideonomy, theory of ideas, TRIZ, intellectual property, Altshuller, Osborn, Harrari