Would we rather be wrong than not know what we are?

Another question: what is it to be "wrong"? We are right as long as we believe we are right. It's just that the more settled and narrow personalities will have less breadth. Purity versus self-enlargement.

self-aggrandisement, to be right and wrong is a spectators sport.

And so much of life is. Social animals we are. Also there are so many ways to be "right." Wrong, be thou my right. Right, be thou my wrong. A flexible application of the Self archetype?

Thee your wrong, be thou my right. Thee your right, be thou my worng.

Another question: what is it to be "wrong"? We are right as long as we believe we are right. It's just that the more settled and narrow personalities will have less breadth. Purity versus self-enlargement.

Negative capability is a theory of the poet John Keats describing the capacity for accepting uncertainty and the unresolved. Negative capability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To make do with as little dogma as possible. To see things from the points of view of other humans, to whatever degree the imagination makes this possible. Keats thought Shakespeare was the king of negative capability. Shakespeare was everyone and no one. He could be everyone only because he was no one. The more rigid one's views, the less one can understand the views of others. For me, negative capability ties in with Rorty's ironism.
Negative capability seems important in the question self-enlargement, self-enrichment. It has also been associated with Heidegger's Gelassenheit.

Negative capability might be described as the opposite of dogmatism. Any thoughts?

Negative capability is a theory of the poet John Keats describing the capacity for accepting uncertainty and the unresolved. Negative capability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To make do with as little dogma as possible. To see things from the points of view of other humans, to whatever degree the imagination makes this possible. Keats thought Shakespeare was the king of negative capability. Shakespeare was everyone and no one. He could be everyone only because he was no one. The more rigid one's views, the less one can understand the views of others. For me, negative capability ties in with Rorty's ironism.
Negative capability seems important in the question self-enlargement, self-enrichment. It has also been associated with Heidegger's Gelassenheit.

Negative capability might be described as the opposite of dogmatism. Any thoughts?

They take from it that I am opposed to their thoughts all too often.

I
Not saying this is you. I just see it done often. It's one thing to have an open mind, it's another to deny that you ever have beliefs. .

Maybe you are opposed to their thoughts, but take the position of Devil's Advocate so that you are not held accountable for what you say? I mean, that's an easy way out - saying you aren't on either side of the fence, still posing the serious questions, and then never having to be wrong! The moment someone confronts you, you can just say, "No, calm down, it wasn't actually my position, I'm just playing a Devil's Advocate!".

Not saying this is you. I just see it done often. It's one thing to have an open mind, it's another to deny that you ever have beliefs. I think people are often just too afraid to be wrong (I mean for those of us who actually believe we can be wrong - I have heard that some people believe they're right on account that they think they're right).

Yes, that's the confusion between having an open mind, and having an empty head. There is a a big difference.

Having an empty head means that all doors are closed? perhaps they are all as open but with an empty head you just dont know how to walk through them, does this mean you are as closed just because you dont know which way to go?
Please describe what the 'big difference' is to your always open mind.
Or are you like most minds a revolving door? Never empty but never so full.

An open mind is willing to consider all but the most absurd views.But does not consider all views equally plausible or that every view should be taken witth equal seriousness, An empty head is unable to distinguish among views, and it apt to consider all of them equally plausible since he has little basis on which to evaluate them. The open mind is skeptical. The empty head is gullible.

There is a difference between saying if all logic is flawed no argument is sound and saying since all logic is flawed no argument is sound. I can contemplate the idea while still holding that it is most likely absurd to actually hold.

It fascinates me just how many isms and "theories" are out there that try to make such common thought sound so sophisticated. I mean, I think I'll call my acceptance of uncertainty just that - acceptance of uncertainty. I don't need this 'Negative Capability' nonsense. Is this a novel view, by the way? Don't most reasonable people accept that we are fallible, and things are uncertain to most degrees?

But on the Keats: "Keats, as a Romantic, believed that the truths found in the imagination access holy authority. This "being in uncertaint[y]" is a place between the mundane, ready reality and the multiple potentials of a more fully understood existence."

He was being uncertain for all the wrong reasons, it seems! Look at all that mysterious language, "multiple potentials of a more fully understood existence". He probably didn't even know what that meant.