Nicholas of Cusa

Nicholas of Cusa (Nicolaus Cusanus), 1401?-1464, German humanist, scientist, statesman, and philosopher, from 1448 cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. The son of a fisherman, Nicholas was educated at Deventer, Heidelberg, Padua, Rome, and Cologne. He became bishop of Brixon (Bressanone) in 1450 and instituted widespread, though temporary, reforms of the monasteries. As papal legate he traveled throughout Europe preaching and negotiating diplomatic affairs for the Holy See. Nicholas' greatest achievements were in science and philosophy. His researches and writings formed major advances in Renaissance mathematics, astronomy, and mysticism. He held, before the time of Copernicus and Newton, that the nearly spherical earth revolves on its axis about the sun and that the stars are other worlds. He described the Gregorian calendar reform in detail, before it occurred. In mathematics Nicholas propounded significant concepts of the infinitesimal and contributed to modern relativity theory. His mystical religious philosophy was set forth in his essays De Docta Ignorantia [of learned ignorance] (1440, tr. 1954), De Conjuncturis Libri Duo, and De Visio Dei [vision of God] (1453, tr. 1928). It anticipated the direction of growth of Renaissance conjecture concerning the nature of man and his relationship to the cosmos.

Bibliography: See studies by M. Watanabe (1963); F. H. Burgevin (1969); and J. Hopkins (1986).

Nicholas of Cusa (1401–64), German philosopher. In 1433 he took part in the Council of Basle as an advocate in a dispute concerning the see of Trier; he also worked for the reconciliation of the Hussites and procured the acceptance of the Calixtines by the Council. He originally favoured the Conciliar Movement, but he became estranged from its supporters and from 1437 devoted himself wholly to the cause of the Pope. Nicholas V made him a cardinal and in 1450 appointed him Bp. of Brixen (in the Tyrol) and Papal legate for the German-speaking countries. He worked for reform until a conflict with Duke Sigismund forced him to leave his diocese. He spent his last years in Rome.

In intellectual outlook Nicholas was a forerunner of the Renaissance. His main work, De Docta Ignorantia, was a defence of his two celebrated principles, ‘docta ignorantia’ and ‘coincidentia oppositorum’. ‘Docta ignorantia’ was the highest stage of intellectual apprehension accessible to the human intellect, since Truth, which is absolute, one, and infinitely simple, is unknowable to man. Knowledge by contrast is relative, multiple, complex, and at best only approximate. The road to Truth therefore leads beyond reason and the principle of contradiction; it is only by intuition that we can discover God, the ‘coincidentia oppositorum’, wherein all contradictions meet.