Leonardo DaVinci - 7 Da Vincian Principles
Leonardo DaVinci, in my opinion, is the greatest of all the polymaths. His contributions to anatomy, art, natural philosophy, the scientific method, aeronautics, engineering, optics, and the list goes on and on.
Maybe his greatest contribution was giving us clues, via his infamous journals, on how to become an observer of life…not just the minutiae of our interests at the time. His ability to see, observe, interpret, and then explain is unrivaled to this day.
In Michael Gelb’s How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, he presents a list of the seven “Da Vincian Principles”.
1. Curiosita (curiosity) is the drive to understand, learn, and grow, and surely must be the foundation for everything else. In terms of humanistic/positive psychology, this is similar to the drive to actualize one’s potential.
Leonardo treated curiosity not as a trait, but as a moral obligation.
2. Dimostrazione (demonstration) is about grounding oneself in empirical reality, including learning from experience. This reflects a scientific and pragmatic mindset.
This is field science, not lab science.
3. Sensazione (sensation) is about being genuinely perceptive, including both noticing fine details (as taught in science and art) and being mindful in general (as taught in some Eastern philosophies).
Leonardo believed poor perception leads to false conclusions, no matter how clever the theory.
4. Sfumato (nuanced) is the necessity of becoming comfortable with the ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty we unavoidably encounter in our lives and the world. Without this flexibility and adaptiveness of mind, we are doomed to becoming confined within a very narrow domain of experience, and our effectiveness in life is greatly diminished.
This principle is cognitive antifragility. (Check out David Webb’s substack on this)
5. Arte/Scienza (art/science) is about the balance between holistic/creative and reductionistic/analytical thinking. I think that Gelb’s choice of terminology is a bit caricatured and misleading here, since both art and science require both kinds of thinking if they are to be done well, but we all get his point.
This principle is really about bilateral cognition.
6. Corporalita (embodiment) is about maintaining your body’s health and refining your body’s abilities. While physical ability could be considered a bonus, health is clearly a necessary condition.
Health wasn’t optional. The body was an instrument of perception.
7. Connessione (connection) is about understanding and appreciating how everything is connected. This relates to sfumato and the arte/scienza balance, and also the modern theories of systems, networks, complexity, etc.
This is proto–systems theory.
Proto–ecology.
Proto–complexity science.
There are so many lessons we can glean from da Vinci’s work. As in any realm, learning an equation will never trump learning a principle, so take these principles and apply them to your daily life, then observe what changes ensue.
