Nicholas of Cusa

1401-1464 · German (Moselle, Holy Roman Empire) · Christian Neoplatonism, philosophical theology, cosmology, epistemology, ecclesiology

He is most learned who knows the ignorance distinctively his.

Born in a Moselle village in 1401, Nicholas of Cusa became a cardinal and papal diplomat — yet the idea that defined his life came to him on a sea voyage from Constantinople in 1437. He said the whole of "De Docta Ignorantia" opened as a gift from above. That work announced learned ignorance: the mind's most perfect knowledge is its precise understanding of why it cannot seize the infinite truth it nonetheless approaches. A polygon inscribed in a circle never becomes the circle — recognizing that gap is not defeat but the highest knowing finite minds can reach.

Topics Nicholas of Cusa addresses

• learned ignorance
• coincidence of opposites
• the absolute maximum and absolute minimum
• complicatio and explicatio
• the wall of paradise
• God beyond affirmation and negation
• possest
• non aliud
• contractio
• the boundless universe
• the infinite sphere
• rejection of the cosmic center
• the earth as a noble star
• conjectural knowledge
• intellectus and ratio
• the polygon-and-circle figure
• proportio
• the human mind as imago Dei
• mens as creative measure
• Christ as the contracted maximum
• the vision of God
• negative and positive theology
• una religio in rituum varietate
• the wisdom of the layman

Converse with Nicholas of Cusa on Symposium. Every reply is grounded in Nicholas of Cusa's own writing and cites the page it came from. The corpus is public-domain text.