Nicholas of Cusa

Agora

Nicholas of Cusa

1401–1464

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

The wisest knowledge is knowing the limits of our knowledge – in God all opposites coincide, and the universe has no fixed centre or edge.

Placement

Renaissance & Humanism · Western Europe · Metaphysics, Religion, Epistemology

Learned ignorance: God is the coincidence of opposites; a forerunner of the idea of a boundless universe.

Key ideas

Docta ignorantia
Coincidentia oppositorum

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Influence

Influenced by 5

Plato

influenced by
Cusanus read Plato largely through Proclus’ commentary on the Parmenides and took up Platonic participation for the relation of the many to the One (De non aliud, 1462). Nicholas of Cusa, De beryllo (1458); De non aliud (1462); SEP “Nicholas of Cusa”
Evidence: AI draft
Plato › 428–348 BCE
Proclus

influenced by
Cusanus annotated Proclus’ Elements of Theology and commentary on the Parmenides and had his Platonic Theology translated by Pietro Balbi; he cites Proclus in De non aliud (1462). Nicholas of Cusa, De non aliud (1462); Proclus, Theologia Platonica, Latin tr. P. Balbi; SEP “Nicholas of Cusa”
Evidence: AI draft
Proclus › 412–485
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

influenced by
Cusanus took up Dionysius’ negative theology and darkness beyond knowledge for his learned ignorance and discussed him in letters to the Tegernsee monks on mystical theology (1453). Nicholas of Cusa, De docta ignorantia (1440), book I; letters to the monks of Tegernsee (1452–54); SEP “Nicholas of Cusa”
Evidence: AI draft
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite › c. 480–530
Ramon Llull

influenced by
Cusanus copied and excerpted Llull’s works, still kept in his library at Kues, and drew on Lullian correlatives for his trinitarian thought. E. Colomer, Nikolaus von Kues und Raimund Llull (1961); SEP “Nicholas of Cusa”; SEP “Ramon Llull”
Evidence: AI draft
Ramon Llull › c. 1232–1316
Meister Eckhart

influenced by
Cusanus owned and annotated a large manuscript of Eckhart’s Latin works and defended Eckhart in his Apologia doctae ignorantiae (1449), while warning against reading him publicly. Nicholas of Cusa, Apologia doctae ignorantiae (1449); Cod. Cus. 21 (Bernkastel-Kues); SEP “Nicholas of Cusa”
Evidence: AI draft
Meister Eckhart › c. 1260–1328

Influenced 1

Giordano Bruno

influenced ✓
Bruno called Cusanus ‘divine’ and took up his coincidence of opposites and his universe without fixed centre, extending them to an infinite universe (De la causa, 1584). G. Bruno, De la causa, principio et uno (1584); De l’infinito, universo e mondi (1584); SEP “Giordano Bruno”; SEP “Nicholas of Cusa”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Giordano Bruno › 1548–1600

Works

1440On Learned Ignorance
God as the coincidence of opposites; a universe without a center.

Position

Nicholas of Cusa began from the insight that finite reason cannot grasp the infinite. True wisdom is therefore “learned ignorance”: knowing that one does not know, and thinking toward God by way of mathematical images. In God all opposites coincide – the greatest and the smallest, the circle and the straight line. From this he concluded that the universe has no fixed centre or boundary, and that the earth is not at rest at the centre of everything. He also stressed that human knowledge is conjectural and creative. Standing between the Middle Ages and modern times, he anticipated ideas later found in Bruno, Leibniz and the idea of an open universe.

Life & context

Born in 1401 in Kues on the Moselle, Nicholas studied in Heidelberg, Padua and Cologne. At the Council of Basel he first sided with the conciliar party, then with the pope, and in 1437 travelled to Constantinople to prepare church union. Made a cardinal and bishop of Brixen, he worked for church reform and died in Todi in 1464.