John keats Negative capability

Negative capability is the state of creative opposition that allows one to transcend any intellectual or social constraint, and to perceive and to think more than any presupposition of human nature allows.[citation needed] It describes the capacity of human beings to reject the constraints of a closed system or context, and to both experience phenomenon free from any epistemological bounds, as well as to assert their own will and individuality upon their activity. The term was first used by the Romantic poet John Keats to critique those who sought to categorize all experience and phenomena and turn them into a theory of knowledge.[citation needed] It has recently been appropriated by philosopher and social theorist Roberto Mangabeira Unger to comment on human nature and to explain how human beings innovate and resist within confining social contexts. The concept has also inspired psychoanalytic practices and twentieth-century art and literary criticism.