Coda: Notes on Novelty

June 29, 2021

Novelty, certainly an intriguing concept, is nevertheless elusive to grasp. What is it? Is novelty in the eyes of its creators? Or in the eyes of its beholders? Consider Spence Silver’s ruminations about his discovery of a substance that eventually became key to the formulation of 3M’s Post-it Notes:

To address the many knotty issues surrounding novelty implicated in Silver’s ruminations (e.g., what is it, to whom, when), I first examine the concept from two metatheoretical perspectives – substance and process (Rescher, 1996). I then make a case for applying both to experiencing phenomena. By combining insights from the two, I conclude that novelty is best seen as ongoing relational–temporal construals of phenomena by actors who experience them in original ways.