[Throughout the first half of 2026, I hope to provide you with a robust picture of how existential wellness coaches work with their clients on fundamental existential issues. If you’d like to learn more about the Noble-Manhattan Existential Wellness Coaching Certificate Program that I’ve developed, please visit here. There are scholarships available and all of the resources of the Noble Manhattan family. Come take a look. Today’s offering is Part 1 of a mini-series on ambiguity and uncertainty, two issues with which your clients are unquestionably wrestling.]
Let’s refresh our memory about the differences between those very similar ideas, ambiguity and uncertainty, both of which existential themes loom large in the lives of our clients.
Ambiguity typically refers to the present moment: to not knowing what something means right now. The situation itself is unclear, undefined or confusing. Uncertainty, by contrast, refers to the future: to not knowing what will occur. With uncertainty, you may understand the situation clearly but still not know how it will play itself out.
Let’s look at ambiguity first.
As an existential wellness coach, or as someone interested in existential wellness, you hardly need a crash course in the philosophical concept of “ambiguity.” But a little grounding in that history will serve you, as “ambiguity” has long played a subtle but powerful role both in the history of philosophy and in our understanding of life’s realities. This remains true because “ambiguity” is a reality, one that can’t be wished away or washed away.
Ambiguity first emerged as a philosophical concern in the dialogues of Plato. Socratic questioning often exposed how seemingly clear concepts like justice, beauty, and virtue dissolved and fractured under scrutiny. The Socratic method of questioning helped us understand that abstract concepts refused to be pinned down, because they did not stand for any single thing but rather for many things (or collections of things), often as many things as there were human beings.
Millennia later, philosophers of the Enlightenment championed clarity and reason; and as part of their agenda to elevate rationality to some sovereign pinnacle, they viewed ambiguity as an obstacle. Empiricists like Descartes, Locke, and Hume tried to argue ambiguity away, announcing that it was possible to eliminate all doubt from living. Descartes, for instance, famously announced in Discourse on the Method, Part II, “My first precept is to never accept a thing until I knew it as such without a single doubt.” Ah, but this is nothing like life; and so, this attempt at perfect clarity was doomed to fail.
In reaction to the Enlightenment, Romantic and Idealist philosophers reclaimed ambiguity. The German philosopher Hegel, for instance, argued that contradiction and ambiguity were not failures of thought but rather engines of dialectical development. Ambiguity marked the in-between stages of becoming, the transitions between what he called “thesis” and “antithesis.” Similarly, the Danish existentialist Kierkegaard explored the existential ambiguities of faith, freedom, and selfhood, arguing that ambiguity is intrinsic to the human condition.
Let’s look at ambiguity first.
As an existential wellness coach, or as someone interested in existential wellness, you hardly need a crash course in the philosophical concept of “ambiguity.” But a little grounding in that history will serve you, as “ambiguity” has long played a subtle but powerful role both in the history of philosophy and in our understanding of life’s realities. This remains true because “ambiguity” is a reality, one that can’t be wished away or washed away.
Ambiguity first emerged as a philosophical concern in the dialogues of Plato. Socratic questioning often exposed how seemingly clear concepts like justice, beauty, and virtue dissolved and fractured under scrutiny. The Socratic method of questioning helped us understand that abstract concepts refused to be pinned down, because they did not stand for any single thing but rather for many things (or collections of things), often as many things as there were human beings.
Millennia later, philosophers of the Enlightenment championed clarity and reason; and as part of their agenda to elevate rationality to some sovereign pinnacle, they viewed ambiguity as an obstacle. Empiricists like Descartes, Locke, and Hume tried to argue ambiguity away, announcing that it was possible to eliminate all doubt from living. Descartes, for instance, famously announced in Discourse on the Method, Part II, “My first precept is to never accept a thing until I knew it as such without a single doubt.” Ah, but this is nothing like life; and so, this attempt at perfect clarity was doomed to fail.
In reaction to the Enlightenment, Romantic and Idealist philosophers reclaimed ambiguity. The German philosopher Hegel, for instance, argued that contradiction and ambiguity were not failures of thought but rather engines of dialectical development. Ambiguity marked the in-between stages of becoming, the transitions between what he called “thesis” and “antithesis.” Similarly, the Danish existentialist Kierkegaard explored the existential ambiguities of faith, freedom, and selfhood, arguing that ambiguity is intrinsic to the human condition.
De Beauvoir argued that the human condition is unavoidably ambiguous because we are both subject and object, free and constrained, individual and universal. Any ethics that denies ambiguity is either overly abstract or dangerously authoritarian. Her existential ethics reject the dream of purity, finality, and total knowledge. Instead, they call for an embrace of ambiguity as a mark of human freedom and responsibility. For her, living authentically means acting within and despite ambiguity, not fleeing from it.
That is our beginning. More next week!
[I hope that you’re enjoying this series. Please check out the Noble Manhattan Existential Wellness Coach Certificate Program and my latest books, Brave New Mind and Night Brilliance.]
Check out Eric Maisel’s transformative courses in collaboration with Noble Manhattan—designed to elevate your coaching journey.
