47 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CHARLES S. PEIRCE SOCIETY Vol. 52, No. 1 (2016) • doi: 10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.52.1.03 Copyright © Charles S. Peirce Society Time and the Creative Act Aaron Stoller Abstract Tis essay makes the case that one of the most signifcant errors in aesthetic theory is its failure to account for art as a creative act that emerges from the temporal fow of lived experience. Drawing on John Dew- ey’s aesthetics and contemporary poetics, it articulates a view of creative action in terms of temporal experience. It begins by show- ing why time must be considered central to aesthetic theory, drawing a connection between time and what Dewey calls the logic of qualitative thought. It then distin- guishes between time as a temporal ordering and time as a temporal quality of creative action. Finally, it argues that creative action is only possible because it is a temporally emergent process that is qualitatively expe- rienced. As a result of placing temporality at its core, aesthetic theory shifts from a concern with the products of the art world to the practices of creative action. Keywords: John Dewey, Aesthetics, Time, Temporality, Creativity When philosophers consider art, they typically do so from the standpoint of an outside observer, yielding a description of the phenomenon as though it was in actu- ality a mode of philosophy. Here the work appears to have been constructed as part of a purely rational process, or at least dom- inated by logic and cognitive intention at all meaningful points along the way. In the fnal account the anoetic is eclipsed by the noetic, which is taken as its most important and most valid dimension. Recently Tomas C. Hilde (2000) claimed that “the typical philosopher’s van- tage is nevertheless bound to present an