Treading no-way

By Vithal C Nadkarni

Swiss novelist and entrepreneur Rolf Dobelli begins the epilogue to his bestseller The Art of Thinking Clearly with story of the Pope asking Michelangelo about the secret of his genius: how had he created the statue of David, his “masterpiece of masterpieces”? Michelangelo says it’s simple: he just removed whatever was not David! Michelangelo chiselling away all that’s not David is fundamental, Dobelli writes, “In our case: eliminate all errors and clear thinking will follow.”

A similar approach was called Via Negativaor Via Negationisby the ancients and medieval thinkers. In theology, it was an attempt to describe God by negation, by emphasising what God was not because His perfection was believed to lie beyond human description, or even conception. Earlier columns of Spiritual Atheist have spoken of the similarity of this western theology and Adi Shankaracharya’s “Neti Neti” philosophy.

Dobelli’s epilogue initially won enthusiastic support of the noted thinker renowned for his theory of black swan events, Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Later, the risk-specialist accused Dobelli of stealing his idea of Via Negativa! Dobelli, who is primarily a novelist, responded by saying the negative way had a 2,000-year history and that Taleb had seen the book in various stages and even helped launch it.

“Theologians were the first to tread the Via Negativa,” Dobelli insists. “Applied to the present day, we cannot say what brings us success. We can only pin down what blocks or obliterates (it). Eliminate the downside and the upside will take care of itself.”