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Nicholas of Cusa's On Learned Ignorance
A Commentary on De docta ignorantia
Imprint: Catholic University of America Press
This is the first commentary to have been written on Nicholas of Cusa's most famous work, On Learned Ignorance. This fact testifies to the difficulty of what has long been recognized to be the most significant philosophical text produced by the Renaissance. While there are many passages in the work that can be cited in support of Cassirer's celebration of Cusanus as the first modern philosopher, that judgment is challenged by the way his work is rooted in a faith and a tradition likely to strike us as thoroughly medieval. This commentary shows how closely the two are linked. Despite the many ways in which what the cardinal has to say belongs to a past that the progress of reason would seem to have left irrecoverably behind, it yet provides us with a continuing challenge. Key to On Learned Ignorance is the incommensurability of the infinite and the finite, of God and creation. Cusanus lets us recognize the essential transcendence of reality, so different from the ontology implied by Descartes' insistence on clear and distinct understanding, which has presided over the progress of science and has helped shape our world. What makes Cusanus’ thought important is not the way it anticipates modernity, but the way it challenges often taken-for-granted presuppositions of our worldview, most importantly a distinctly modern self-assertion or self-elevation that has made our human reason the measure of reality. If it is impossible to deny the countless ways in which our science and technology have given us ever deeper insights into the mysteries of nature and improved our lives, it is equally impossible to deny that this very progress today endangers this fragile earth and the quality of our lives. Cusanus can help us preserve our humanity.
Karsten Harries is the Howard H. Newman Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Yale University.
"A magisterial contribution to the body of work on the philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa. Written in an inviting style that will encourage a broad readership, and it will also be of paramount interest to the community of Cusanus scholars, who will experience it as a profound gift."
~Elizabeth Brient, University of Georgia
"This book contains a masterclass written by a grandmaster of learned ignorance. As a former student of Karsten Harries, I relished the opportunity to revisit under his able guidance Cusanus’s seminal chapters on divine namelessness, the infinite sphere of God, perspectival knowing in and of the world, the need for religious tolerance, and the ultimate meaning and purpose of faith in an incarnate God. Those who have not had this privilege will be treated for the first time to a capacious scholar as well as to his measured and humble peregrinations on the very edges of rational reflection. Recalling his early existentialist search for an alternative to modern nihilism, Harries makes us confront the untimely task of finding a true and meaningful ontological measure for our place in the world. "
~Peter Casarella, Duke Divinity School
"Karsten Harries’s life-long fascination with Nicholas of Cusa finds its culmination in this illuminating chapter-by-chapter commentary on Nicholas’s masterpiece, On Learned Ignorance. Harries’s extensive knowledge of German philosophy, of art history and architectural theory and of the history of modern science undergirds his thought-provoking comments on the details of Nicholas’s views of God, the universe and Jesus Christ. Understanding and learning from this 15th-century original thinker who stands between medieval and modern ideas helps us realize what we have lost and where we might turn to regain both balance and direction. Harries’s commentary is more than a reconsideration. He breaks open new possibilities as he guides us through Nicholas’s proposals and illuminates his lasting genius. There is no better guide to reading Nicholas today."
~Clyde Lee Miller, author of The Art of Conjecture: Nicholas of Cusa on Knowledge
"In this masterly commentary on Nicolas of Cusa’s On Learned Ignorance, Karsten Harries assesses the genuine originality of this astonishing thinker, who bridges the medieval and modern worlds. Harries carefully explicates the full range and relevance of Cusanus’s discussions of knowledge and ignorance, human and divine nature, finite world and infinite divinity, the Incarnation and the role of the Church. He reassesses the claim of Cusanus to be the first modern thinker and deftly situates the Cusan’s greatness in his power to respond to crisis and challenge our modern assumptions concerning human dominance and self-assertion in the world. Anyone interested in the emergence of the modern worldview needs to read this beautifully written and challenging book."
~Dermot Moran, Boston College