# What is Creativity **Abstract:** I argue for an account of creativity that unifies creative achievements in the arts, sciences, and other domains and identifies its characteristic val‐ ue. This account draws upon case studies of creative work in both the arts and sciences to identify creativity as a kind of successful exploration. I argue that if creativity is properly understood in this way, then it is fun‐ damentally a property of processes, something only agents can achieve, something that comes in degrees, subjectively novel, and non-formulaic. As I develop the account, I show how it avoids challenges faced by other accounts of creativity, especially concerning creativity's value. Hills and Bird have together argued that creativity is not necessarily valuable. My account challenges this view. If I am right that creativity is a kind of suc‐ cessful exploration, then creativity does have a characteristic value, specifically epistemic value. I. Introduction1 There is much ado about creativity. Researchers and educators worry that students at all levels are becoming less creative.2 Some have gone so far as to declare that we are approaching a “creativity crisis”.3 Professors in the sciences are developing pedagogical strategies to help students become more creative because they worry that students aren't coming up with diverse and divergent solutions as regularly as they should be.4 The recent development of powerful artificial intelligence models has sparked concern that human creativity is under threat.5 H