Negative capability

Etymology

Coined by poet John Keats in an 1817 letter to his brothers, describing the quality he admired in Shakespeare: being "in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason." Flagged as a Keats coinage.

noun phrase · /NEG-uh-tiv kay-puh-BIL-ih-tee/
The capacity to dwell in uncertainty and doubt without grasping impatiently for tidy answers.
What it names
A handle for the mature comfort with not-knowing that creativity and wisdom require — useful as an antidote to premature certainty.
Example
Good therapists have negative capability, sitting with a client’s tangled feelings instead of rushing to solve them.
Related idea
Compare equanimity, an evenness of mood; negative capability is specifically about tolerating intellectual and emotional ambiguity, not calm in general.