The Creativity of Richard David Precht. A Psychological Perspective on the German Author and Philosopher

Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject Psychology - Personality Psychology, grade: 2.0, University of Malta (Edward de Bono Institute), course: Creativity: Psychological Perspectives, language: English, abstract: This paper explores the personality of Richard David Precht. It shows his work and private life as well as his upbringing. This work then further explores the influence of his background on his creativity from the view of experts and then explains Precht's views on the given topics. The topics focussed are the nature vs. nurture debate, the influence of intelligence towards creativity and the creative process and its motivation. Despite a certain general knowledge or common sense about what creativity is, the issue of an exhaustive scientific definition for the term 'creativity' is under broad discussion among scholars. It is argued here that the investigation of the psychological underpinnings of a creative individual taking the profession of a philosopher might be of some value to understand or at least give a brief idea what beliefs and predispositions could enable persons to engage and influence public discussions and bring new and valuable ideas to the society for the better of its majority. The individual selected for this case study is the German philosopher, author, speaker and public intellectual Richard David Precht who, in his position, could serve as one example of extraordinary display of the causes and effects of applied creativity.