A Micro-Macro Theory of Intellectual Creativity: The Case of German Idealist Philosophy

Abstract

Each situation has a negotiable or emergent quality to it. What actually happens in a new interaction, though, is determined by the combination of all participants' cultural capital, emotional energy, and market opportunities. These factors shape their motivations to deal with one another, and what sorts of ritual constructions of reality they are able to carry out. Ordinarily this takes place in conversations, which can be vehicles for reaffirming old relationships, creating new ones, passing old cultural capital around from one person to another, as well as creating new cultural capital out of the content of the interaction itself. Each