Naivety

Naivety or gullibility ( associated adjective naive, naïf of French, childlike ',' originally ',' simple ',' harmless ', ' foolish ') can be used as a shortened, cleared to the general usage form of "native (s)" ( native, originally ) are considered. Generally, people are referred to as naive, lacking the necessary insight into their actions. Often considered " naive " as a synonym for credulous, guileless, easily seduced or ignorant.

Term use

As it implies the definition, it is mainly children who are naive. While the child's impartiality and integrity is still regarded by many as positive, even as a pure and innocent, they often apply to an adult as a serious character flaw, as mental limitations. Here it occurs in the wake of arrogance and narcissism.

Naivete, however, can be perceived as positive in adults, even as attractive. It can then be presumed innocent, open, or as a sign of - be counted personality - not yet disfigured by the wickedness of others.

As a positive feature of the naivety also occurs with outstanding personalities of history. They are not only unbiased, but have the gift of a situation, with the help of her genius and building on their enormous knowledge to face neutral free of restrictions. With their childlike curiosity and free of mental shackles limits are tested and moved and so prepares the way for groundbreaking discoveries and inventions.

In this sense, naivety is not only impartiality, but also the assets or peculiarity, a situation confront neutral free of ( a limiting ) knowledge. While normally the lack of knowledge may seem dangerous, this kind of naivety holds the virtue of innocence. To be naive here does not mean to be unconditionally or ignorant. It is rather the antipathetic ( abneigende ) attitude towards the conceptual life against which hardly faces the knowledge or the knowledge of a conditional existence. Kant called the naivety as " a noble or beautiful simplicity, which bears the seal of nature itself" or elsewhere as ' outbreak of mankind against the original sincerity has become a second nature to the art of dissimulation. "

One of the first literary treatises, which had the naivety on the subject, the picaresque novel was The Adventurous Simplicissimus by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausenmuseum.

Art

Friedrich Schiller differs in the essay " On Naive and Sentimental Poetry " between childish naivety, which is ridiculed, because their source is ignorance and inability, and childlike naivete behind the man " a heart full of innocence and truth " recognizes and which one as "a higher practical [ ie moral ] strength " admired. Childishly naive means " in harmony with nature ", " one with itself and happy in feeling his humanity " - without knowing it. In this sense, naive lives, feels, ancient man seals. Sentimental, however, behaves the modern poet by returning longs for harmony with nature and the beauty of the lifestyle of the ancient world; because " we", the moderns, living " at odds with ourselves and unhappy in our experience of mankind," - namely, the knowledge of the ancient world as the irretrievably lost childhood of the human race. Schiller therefore does not require the impossible, the return to nature and naive sealing manner. Rather, it recognizes a longing for the ancient beauty of an educational ideal.

Without the context of Schiller's reflections is called naive art to denote paintings, which are characterized by a child-like (and often childish ) view of the world. Some of these images testify next great artistic talent as " a heart full of innocence and truth ", such as the customs officials Henri Rousseau, for at the beginning of the 20th century inspired the Parisian avant-garde. The term "naive music " is not used very often, but there are in the field of folk music similar phenomena (Scott Joplin, Champion Jack Dupree and many others).

Science

In science, we then referred to an attempt participating persons as " naive " when it has the specific objective of the investigation is unknown or they do not know that they are persons investigation. So a group of people regarded as impartial and non-biased, the investigation process thus did not affect the subjects or the result. This also result distortions are reduced by expectations and inadequate adaptation to the test.