Nicholas of Cusa, De docta ignorantia, Ms

''De docta ignorantia'' ( la, On learned ignorance/on scientific ignorance) is a

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physi ...

on philosophy and

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

Nicholas of Cusa Nicholas of Cusa (1401 – 11 August 1464), also referred to as Nicholas of Kues and Nicolaus Cusanus (), was a German Catholic cardinal, philosopher, theologian, jurist, mathematician, and astronomer. One of the first German proponents of Re ...

(or Nicolaus Cusanus), who finished writing it on 12 February 1440 in his hometown of Kues, Germany. Earlier scholars had discussed the question of "learned ignorance". Augustine of Hippo, for instance, stated "''Est ergo in nobis quaedam, ut dicam, docta ignorantia, sed docta spiritu dei, qui adiuvat infirmitatem nostram''" There is therefore in us a certain learned ignorance, so to speak — an ignorance which we learn from that Spirit of God who helps our infirmities" here he explains the working of the Holy Spirit among men and women, despite their human insufficiency, as a learned ignorance. The Christian writer

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (or Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite) was a Greek author, Christian theologian and Neoplatonic philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century, who wrote a set of works known as the ''Corpus Areopagiticum'' o ...

advises his reader to ἀγνώστως ἀνατάθητι, to "strive upwards unknowingly". Bonaventura of Bagnoregio declared "''spiritus noster non-solum efficitur agilis ad ascensum verum etiam quadam ignorantia docta supra se ipsum rapitur in caliginem et excessum''" Johannes Übinger, Docta ignor., p. 8 we are lifted into divine knowing without directly striving for it" For Cusanus, ''docta ignorantia'' means that since mankind can not grasp the infinity of a deity through rational knowledge, the limits of science need to be passed by means of speculation. This mode of inquiry blurs the borders between science and ''ignorantia''. In other words, both reason and a supra-rational understanding are needed to understand God. This leads to the ''

coincidentia oppositorum The unity of opposites is the central category of dialectics, said to be related to the notion of non-duality in a deep sense.

'', a union of opposites, a doctrine common in mystic beliefs from the Middle Ages. These ideas influenced other Renaissance scholars in Cusanus' day, such as Pico della Mirandola.

References

External links

''On Learned Ignorance and other works by Nicolas de Cusa''
— Full text in English
''On Learned Ignorance''
Book 1 (1985)
''On Learned Ignorance''
Book 2 (1985)
''On Learned Ignorance''
Book 3 (1985) 15th-century Latin books {{philo-book-stub