Hello Emlyn,

Thank you very much for your comments and feedback. I consider all of your points reasonable. I am guessing that any differences in opinion would be resolved by an agreement on terms; specifically: what the heck is creativity? Agree on that and then there is likely little friction.

Regarding your point about good deductive reasoning...I used to say, and still on occasion say, when being interviewed on the subject of investment management that it is exactly like detective work, equal parts analysis and creativity. If you were to invite 10 detectives to a crime scene, say a bank robbery, there is certainly something to be said for the skill level of fact gathering. But there are literally a billion points of data that could be relevant. But the detective that solves the crime is the one that can identify the pertinent facts out of the myriad number of them - I consider this to be a rendering of creativity - as well as, and more importantly, understands the story that the facts are telling her and who can reconstruct the theory of, or story of the crime. Creating a narrative around facts is a creative process. So, more directly, I think deductive reasoning is an example of the holistic marriage of analysis and creativity. My own opinion is that many people think of creativity as synonymous with the arts or with "what's new." When, to my mind, creativity is also about choices around connections, or permutations of knowledge. Another bias is that the developers of logical topology are, well, logical. If logical topology had been developed by Picasso or Dali I think we would think of reasoning as more creative than we normally grant it to be.

From Wikipedia about deductive reasoning: "Deductive reasoning links premises with conclusions. If all premises are true, the terms are clear, and the rules of deductive logic are followed, then the conclusion reached is necessarily true." Left out of the preceding is how the premises are chosen from amongst a nearly infinite set of possibilities? How do we assess whether terms are clear is also not addressed. One of the dangers of overly scientific, empirical thinking is that we generalize our world and overlook the uniqueness of each moment. Apply the same deductive logic over and over again and you miss every state change. So when to apply your reasoning, how to apply your reasoning, and why you are applying it in the first place are all left out of logical typing.

Look for much more on this subject in a forthcoming product I have been working on for CFA Institute members for the past three years.

With a big smile!

Jason