Numerous philosophical, humanistic, and scientific concepts that constitute the modern worldview are based on philosophical and humanistic ideas from the Renaissance and the late Middle Ages. Included among them are the philosophical ideas of the relatively unknown medieval philosopher, theologian, and humanist Nicholas of Cusa, whom contemporary scholars identify as a philosopher bridging the gap between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The hallmark of that period is a deep moral, intellectual, and spiritual crisis of the medieval worldview, and his philosophy reflects the efforts of that time to redefine and build a new relationship between man and reality.
Nikola Kopernik (1473 – 1543)
Giordano Bruno (1548 – 1600)
Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642)
Nikolaus Chryfftz, later known as Nicholas of Cusa, was born in 1401 in Kues, Germany, into a wealthy merchant family. He received a comprehensive education in theology, philosophy, mathematics, and law at the universities of Heidelberg, Padua, and Cologne. Nicolaus de Cusa, previously known for his careers in physics, medicine, and law, entered the church and achieved a remarkable career in the church hierarchy. He served as a high-ranking church official and theologian, participating in the work of several councils dedicated to resolving the long-standing schism in the Catholic Church. As a member of a papal delegation, he sought to persuade the most significant intellectuals and church representatives of Byzantium to participate in the council for the unification of the Eastern and Western churches in Constantinople. However, his philosophical and scientific interests, as well as his influence on some of the most important Renaissance philosophers, far surpass the results of his work within the church. His works display an openness to other forms of philosophy and a broad Renaissance spirit. He delved into astronomy, topography, and had a particular interest in mathematical problems, which he pursued throughout his life. The central theme of his philosophy revolves around the question: can man understand the ultimate nature of God? Can the famous man reach the ultimate truth of existence?
Throughout his life, he established a close communication and friendship with numerous humanistic thinkers throughout Europe and formed connections with important Byzantine intellectuals such as Bessarion and Plethon, significant participants in the spread of neoplatonism in the West.
Based on the integration of hermetic, platonic, and neoplatonic teachings, Kuzanski constructed a new and revolutionary image of the world. The doctrine of the infinity of the universe and the multitude of worlds, with Earth being just one of the many “stars,” provided a completely new definition of human’s position in the world.
The medieval world view
About the infinity of the universe
The medieval world view was based on the doctrine of a closed and limited world composed of nine spheres, with Earth at its center. The upper, supralunar spheres, spheres above the Moon, were a world governed by perfect order. The lower, sublunar spheres, were Her four elements were a world of constant change and imperfection. Earth, although created by God and at the center of His interest, was the most imperfect and furthest from God’s perfection, and man, who dwelled at the lowest level of existence, was dependent on God’s omnipotence. As a limited, imperfect being, the possibility of comprehending God’s purpose and the unchanging and perfect laws of the world eluded him.
The world, as the unity of all that exists, as Kuzanski explains, is a reflection, an image of God who is absolute reality, the infinite unity of all that is possible. In other words, the universe is a print of God’s being in the visible, a visible God. However, there is no complete equality between God and the world. As God’s perfection, the world is always expressed in a limited way and never reaches the fullness of God’s being. From absolute unity, it “unfolds” into plurality, individual, limited, or as Kuzanski says, the world of the smaller or the greater.
And although the world is not infinite, it still cannot be comprehended. You, as a finite being, have no boundaries within which you would be confined. If the world is without borders, then it cannot have a center, and all forms within it are in relative relation to each other. Earth is no longer at the center, but it is not the “simplest and lowest” among the stars either. It is stella nobilis, a noble star equal to other celestial bodies. Since there is nothing absolute in the universe, including stillness, it is concluded that Earth moves like all the stars. And finally, if Earth, as one of many stars, possesses life, then it is equally possible for other stars to possess it as well.
By “opening up” the closed medieval world, the universe, through the teachings of Nikolaus Cusanus, becomes a world of infinite possibilities. There are no better or worse places; in relation to eternity, all beings and events are equal, and human beings are not necessarily the most imperfect beings in the order of the world.
Johannes van Loon: The scenography of Ptolemy’s cosmography (1660); depicting the solar system and the zodiac circle. The Earth revolves around the Sun at the center.
Andreas Cellarius: The Scenography of the Copernican System (1661); – shows the solar system and the zodiac circle, with the Sun at the center.
The Study of Man
Perhaps the most important contribution of his philosophy is the new, humanistic definition of man’s position in the world. In accordance with the teaching of the world as the visible perfection of God’s nature, he revives the ancient idea of man as a microcosm, a small world.
Truly, human nature is the one that is elevated above all of God’s works and is slightly below the nature of angels, encompassing both the intellectual and sensory nature and summarizing everything within itself, so that the ancients rightly called it a “microcosm” or a “small world”.
In order to be able to comprehend and achieve the fullness of his being, man is given by God the natural power of reason. Thus, unlike the medieval view, Nicholas of Cusa proves that man not only has the ability to know and attain truth, but also that the pursuit of perfection is his natural right. This idea of the possibility of attaining the perfection of human nature, later expressed as the concept of “homo universalis”, becomes one of the fundamental ideas of Renaissance humanism.
The path of knowledge
His most important work, De docta ignorantia, deals precisely with the question of whether man can know God, the absolute truth. In search of this answer, he starts from the medieval worldview that man, as a being belonging to the world of individual and relative things, cannot comprehend the absolute truth through reason.
Indeed, all things that are understood through senses, reason, or mind differ so much from each other that there is no precise equality among them. The greatest equality (God) therefore surpasses every mind and it is neither different nor diverse from anything else.
Hence, a mind that is not the truth never comprehends the truth as accurately as it could be comprehended infinitely more accurately. It relates to the truth in the same way as polygons relate to a circle: the more angles are inscribed in a polygon, the He is more similar to a circle, but he could never become equal to it, even if he multiplied the angles infinitely, unless he reduced himself to being identical to the circle. It is clear, therefore, that we know nothing else about the truth except that it is simply true, exactly as it is, incomprehensible.
Page from the work “De docta ignorantia” (On learned ignorance); written in 1440.
To understand and accept this means to be educated about learned ignorance.
< p>In teaching, nothing more perfect can happen even to the most educated person than to discover that they are very learned in ignorance, which is particularly their own, and someone will be more educated to the extent that they know themselves through what they do not know. p>
But learned ignorance is not absolute ignorance, but a deep insight that human reason is limited and therefore cannot grasp absolute truth. When one accepts this as a necessity, the path to knowledge is opened.
Thus, in the work “Apologia doctae ignorantiae”, he points out the value of learned ignorance:
After these words, the teacher cautioned me to pay attention. The point is that learned ignorance is similar to a high tower, which elevates the viewer for observation. The one who stands at the top sees what the wanderer in the plains seeks in various ways; he also realizes how the seeker is approaching or moving away from what he is looking for. Thus, learned ignorance, situated in a sublime position of the mind, judges the exploration of reason.
Although man is limited in his ability to rationally attain truth, he can still find the face of God in the transient world. God participates in the world because he is the creator of the world. Everything that exists is present in God, for he is the reality of everything. Kuzanski interprets his presence by following Plato’s and Neoplatonic teachings about the soul of the world that permeates the world.
The center of the world, therefore, coincides with the periphery. Hence, there is no perimeter of the world. If there were a center, it would also have a periphery and thus would have its own beginning and end within itself, and there would be something else outside the world. And it would be a place
Therefore, if we observe the various movements of circles, it is not possible for the world machine to have a solid and immovable center, whether it is this perceptible earth, air, fire or anything else.
Therefore, the earth, which cannot be the center, cannot be without any movement.
It is obvious to us that this Earth is indeed moving, although it does not appear to us because we only understand movement in comparison to something solid. If someone did not know that the water is flowing and if they did not see the shore while being in the middle of the water, how would they understand that the boat is moving? And because it would always seem to anyone, whether they are on Earth or on another star, that they themselves are in a stationary center and that everything else is moving, they would certainly establish for themselves different and different poles, one while being on the Sun, others while being on Earth, and others again while being on the Moon, Mars, and so on. From that (it follows that) the world machine seems to have a center everywhere and no edge, because its edge and center is God, who is Everywhere and nowhere.
Since there is no greatest or smallest in perfections, movements, and forms in the world (as is clear from what has just been said), then it is not true that this Earth is the simplest and lowest.
The Earth is, therefore, a noble star that has a different and distinct light, warmth, and influence from all the other stars, just as any star differs from any other star in terms of light, nature, and influence.
Some have said that there are as many species on Earth as there are stars. If, therefore, the Earth condenses the influence of all the stars into individual species, why doesn’t the same happen in the regions of other stars, which receive the influences of others (stars).
Some have called this sublime nature spirit, others have called it the soul of the world, some have called it fate in substance, and some, like the Platonists, have called it the necessity of union… This spirit, therefore, is dispersed and condensed throughout the entirety of existence and its individual parts, and it is called nature.
Thus, nature, as an expression of God’s perfection, becomes the space for humanity. centuries of searching for the truth. God’s being shines in the world like a spirit that connects everything and through which everything participates in it.
You see the amazing unity of things, the equality that should be admired and the miraculous connection that everything has with everything else. You understand that diversity and connection of things arise from it.
Man cannot perceive this unity and connection with his senses and reason because visible things and phenomena are imperfect, they possess only relative value. In the world of passing things, there is nothing so true that it cannot be expressed more accurately. Therefore, reason, guided by learned ignorance, should seek truth beyond the sensory realm through symbols.
All of our wise and divinely inspired teachers have agreed that visible things are indeed images of the invisible and that creatures can see the Creator in a knowable way, like in a mirror and riddles. Following in the footsteps of the ancients, competing with them, we say that we can make better use of mathematical symbols because of their enduring certainty, because we are Access to divine things is only possible through symbols.
Referring to Pythagoras and other notable predecessors, Cusanus introduces mathematics as a path that enables the elevation of the human spirit from the world of the relative to the world of absolute truths. Although mathematics deals with what is measurable and finite, it is the most secure form of human knowledge.
Since everything mathematical is finite and cannot be imagined otherwise: if we want to use the finite as an example to ascend to the highest, it is first necessary to consider finite mathematical figures, along with their properties and essential determinations, and then transfer those essential determinations appropriately to such infinite figures, and after that, in the third place, transfer those essential determinations even further to the simply infinite, which is devoid of any figure.
In this way, by exploring nature and searching for that connecting unity, humans elevate their spirit to the possibility of gaining insight into the absolute spiritual reality. which surpasses human understanding. In his work “De visione Dei”, this ability of the mind to discern “light in darkness” beyond rationality is denoted by the concepts of vision or intuition. Ultimately, learned ignorance is revealed not as an obstacle, but as a means of attaining spiritual intuition as the highest form of knowledge.
Philosophical ideas about the infinity of the universe and the unlimited possibilities for humans to explore themselves and the world have had far-reaching consequences for the development of Renaissance philosophy and modern science. The idea that knowledge is not only possible but also a human right has opened the path for constant questioning and redefining of one’s own existence.