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Preferred term

negative capability  

Definition

  • The poet John Keats (1795–1821) conceived the idea of negative capability in 1817. In a letter to his brothers, he described it as a state in which a person “is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason” (Keats 1970, 43). [Source: Encyclopedia of Leadership; Negative Capability]

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URI

https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/negative_capability

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