Nicholas Of Cusa
Nicholas Of Cusa, German Nikolaus Von Cusa, Latin Nicolaus Cusanus, (born 1401, Kues, Trier—died Aug. 11, 1464, Todi, Papal States), cardinal, mathematician, scholar, experimental scientist, and influential philosopher who stressed the incomplete nature of man’s knowledge of God and of the universe.
At the Council of Basel in 1432, he gained recognition for his opposition to the candidate put forward by Pope Eugenius IV for the archbishopric of Trier. To his colleagues at the council he dedicated De concordantia catholica (1433; “On Catholic Concordance”), in which he expressed support for the supremacy of the general councils of the church over the authority of the papacy. In the same work he discussed the harmony of the church, drawing a pattern for priestly concord from his knowledge of the order of the heavens. By 1437, however, finding the council unsuccessful in preserving church unity and enacting needed reforms, Nicholas reversed his position and became one of Eugenius’ most ardent followers. Ordained a priest about 1440, Cusa was made a cardinal in Brixen (Bressanone), Italy, by Pope Nicholas V and in 1450 was elevated to bishop there. For two years Cusa served as Nicholas’ legate to Germany, after which he began to serve full-time as bishop of Brixen.
A model of the “Renaissance man” because of his disciplined and varied learning, Cusa was skilled in theology, mathematics, philosophy, science, and the arts. In De docta ignorantia (1440; “On Learned Ignorance”) he described the learned man as one who is aware of his own ignorance. In this and other works he typically borrowed symbols from geometry to demonstrate his points, as in his comparison of man’s search for truth to the task of converting a square into a circle.
Among Cusa’s other interests were diagnostic medicine and applied science. He emphasized knowledge through experimentation and anticipated the work of the astronomer Copernicus by discerning a movement in the universe that did not centre in the Earth, although the Earth contributed to that movement. Cusa’s study of plant growth, from which he concluded that plants absorb nourishment from the air, was the first modern formal experiment in biology and the first proof that air has weight. Numerous other developments, including a map of Europe, can also be traced to Cusa. A manuscript collector who recovered a dozen lost comedies by the Roman writer Plautus, he left an extensive library that remains a centre of scholarly activity in the hospital he founded and completed at his birthplace in 1458.
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Western philosophy: Nicholas of CusaNicholas of Cusa (1401–64) also preferred the Neoplatonists to the Aristotelians. To him the philosophy of Aristotle is an obstacle to the mind in its ascent to God because its primary rule is the principle of contradiction, which denies the compatibility of… -
Roman Catholicism: Roman Catholicism and Renaissance humanism…also Renaissance figures such as Nicholas of Cusa, arguably the greatest mind in Christendom East or West during the 15th century, who was at the same time a metaphysician of astonishing boldness and creativity, an ecumenical theologian looking for points of contact not only with other Christians but even with… -
humanism: Idealism and the Platonic Academy of Florence…the mid-15th century—Plethon, Bessarion, and Nicholas of Cusa—had all concentrated their attention on the religious implications of Platonic thought; following them, Ficino sought to reconcile Plato with Christ in apia philosophia (“pious philosophy”). The transcendental goals of these philosophers left little room for the painstaking dialectical method that sifted…
