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Idiota De Mente: The Layman, About Mind
THE ABOUT MIND - Original text with facing authoritative translation
- GenresPhilosophy
125 pages, Library Binding
First published December 1, 1979
About the author
Nicholas of Cusa
91 books62 followersNicholas of Cusa (1401 – August 11, 1464), also referred to as Nicholas of Kues and Nicolaus Cusanus, was a cardinal of the Catholic Church from Germany (Holy Roman Empire), a philosopher, theologian, jurist, mathematician, and an astronomer. He is widely considered one of the great geniuses and polymaths of the 15th century. He is today recognized for significant spiritual, scientific and political contributions in European history, notable examples of which include his mystical or spiritual writings on 'learned ignorance' (and mathematical ideas expressed in related essays), as well as his participation in power struggles between Rome and the German states of the Holy Roman Empire.
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February 3, 2024This was a very tough read, focussing on knowledge and the modalities of it, and very theologically oriented. Nevertheless this is historically important because Cusanus was the first to formulate so explicitly that absolute truth is unattainable.
January 23, 2024
This is an extremely dense and prolonged "conjecture" on the nature and power of mind skillfully presented as a dialogue between the "idiota" (unlettered person, layman), a philosopher, and an orator on a bridge over the Tiber in Rome. In it Nicholas uses the layman, a spoon-carver, to explain via illustrations and analogies what the mind is, both the Divine Mind and, by participation, our individual human minds. The dialogue is composed of 15 chapters. I want to say a bit about the dialogue format and this particular edition before I give a brief overview of the layman's ideas and some of the best bits. The dialogue format in Cusa is important; it roots him in a more ancient (platonic, and biblical) tradition and separates him further from his nominalist contemporaries who wrote much drier forms of philosophical investigation. Also, this particular edition of Idiota de Mente is beautiful; it contains several illustrations of Cusa and his coat of arms, contains a brief biography of Cusa taken from the 1494 Weltchronik, and has a beautiful Latin text parallel to the English translation. Now, onto the ideas in the book...
The layman's over-arching point is that the human's mind is a reflection of the Infinite, Divine Mind which enfolds all things in Itself, and then unfolds all things in the act of creation which is particularization and differentiation. The human mind (Latin, "mens") is purported to come from the word for measure (Latin, "mensura"), so the mind is that which measures, designates, limits. God's mind designates each human, and each human uses his God-imaged mind to designate things in the world. Mind is the power within us to conceptually embrace the exemplars of all things, because the Exemplar of all things (God), who is Infinite Mind, leaves His reflection in everything that is made.
Mind includes (enfolds) all its multifaceted powers: imagination, reason, perception, conceptualization. There is a hierarchy in Mind, with the intellect (the ordering whole) above reason (the conjecturing, pattern-finding faculty), and the reason above the senses (where all knowledge begins). "Mind is a living description of the eternal and infinite wisdom" (55).
Nicholas seems to suggest (pg 47) that Platonism and Aristotelianism are reconciled and harmonized once the hierarchy of minds is grasped, with all human minds reflecting the Infinite Mind (God) in its overwhelming beauty. There are not plural exemplars (Plato's ideas) since all things, concepts, and ideas subsist in the Divine Simplicity itself, the Mind of God. The layman says, "You know how the divine simplicity folds everything up in itself. Mind is an image of this enfolding simplicity" (49). In a subtle passage we read, "As God is the enfolding of enfoldings, so the mind, God's image, is the image of the enfolding of enfoldings. After the images come the plurality of things; these unfold what is folded up in God, just as number unfolds unity, motion unfolds rest, time unfolds eternity, composition unfolds simplicity. Time unfolds the present, magnitude the point, inequality equality, diversity identity, and so on" (51). (This might be the most important passage in the dialogue.)
About names, the layman says, "Therefore there is one ineffable word which is the exact name of everything which is named by human reason" (47). His is the Name beyond speech which is behind every name that humans have or give because of their power of reason. "Every name is the image of the exact name" (47). Therefore, if one could know the exact name of one of God's works, one would know God; "Since the divine Word is the exactness of every name that can be named, it is clear that only in the Word is it possible for all and each to be known" (49).
The problem of the One and the many (or, the plurality of all things alongside the existence of an omnipotent Creator) is solved by the layman in a decidedly brilliant way: "The plurality of things arises from this, that the mind of God understands one thing in a certain way and a second thing in another way. If you attend sharply you will discover that the plurality of things is no more than the way the divine mind understands" (59). But where God thinks and creates, we think and assimilate, that is, make comparisons and form opinions (62). So our thinking that is assimilation is a reflection of God's thinking which is creation.
In a very interesting part of the dialogue, the layman argues that number is the exemplar of all mental concepts, for number is the unfolding of unity just as minds are the unfolding of Mind (61). Similarly, motion is the unfolding of rest (73). These passages which utilize mathematics (arithmetic and geometry) are subtle and difficult, especially because this more ancient way of understanding reality is lost on moderns who only use math when buying things or gambling. Basically, it is math that allows us to distinguish things from one another (arithmetic, music) and math that allows us to gauge the size of things (geometry, astronomy). So only by education in the classical quadrivium do we learn how to comprehend the wholeness of things and thus become philosophers (77). Without training in arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy, no one can possibly become a philosopher.
In another ver helpful passage that is also beautiful, the layman summarizes: "Mind is a living measure which achieves its own capacity by measuring other things. Everything it does is to come to know itself, yet searching in all things it does not find its own measure except where all things are one. There is the truth of mind's exactness, for there is found an exemplar which is its match" (75). The etymology of 'mens' from 'mensura' is key.
Chapter 11 is a fascinating demonstration of how everything in God is Triune, and that, therefore, our human mind (God's image) is triune. The human mind's capacity for being assimilated, its capacity of assimilating, and the connection between them, is a mirror of the Trinity (79). This is a difficult and dense, but highly rewarding chapter. If anything else, Nicholas is arguing for a nesting conformity, an imaging and patterning, of our human capacities on God as Trinity. It is a way of re-theologizing the world and should be given attention by modern theologians and Christian psychologists. But not only the mind, but indeed, all things, mirror the Trinity, for all things are exist in matter, form, and their connection (81).
Toward the end of this trinitarian segment, the layman says, "But since all things necessarily obey the omnipotent will, God's will requires no other executor. For in omnipotence willing and executing coincide, somewhat as when the glassblower makes a piece of glassware. For he blows into the glass his own breath, which brings about his will. And in that breath resides both word or concept and power. For were the power and concept of the glassblower not present in the breath he blows out, the glass would not take on such a shape" (87). An amazing illustration. The work of God is Triune; what the Father carries out through the Wisdom of the Son He wills by the Spirit. "So every mind, even ours, though created below all others, has from God that, in the way it can, it is a perfect and living image of the infinite art. Therefore it exists as three and one; it has power, wisdom, and the connection of both in such as way that, as a perfect image of that art, once stimulated it can make itself even more and more like its exemplar" (87). This sounds like Hegel (or maybe Schelling) inverted. But it's far, far more radical than anything from the German Idealists centuries later. It's nothing other than divination through the grace of the Divine Mind, the God who is Triune.
The layman's over-arching point is that the human's mind is a reflection of the Infinite, Divine Mind which enfolds all things in Itself, and then unfolds all things in the act of creation which is particularization and differentiation. The human mind (Latin, "mens") is purported to come from the word for measure (Latin, "mensura"), so the mind is that which measures, designates, limits. God's mind designates each human, and each human uses his God-imaged mind to designate things in the world. Mind is the power within us to conceptually embrace the exemplars of all things, because the Exemplar of all things (God), who is Infinite Mind, leaves His reflection in everything that is made.
Mind includes (enfolds) all its multifaceted powers: imagination, reason, perception, conceptualization. There is a hierarchy in Mind, with the intellect (the ordering whole) above reason (the conjecturing, pattern-finding faculty), and the reason above the senses (where all knowledge begins). "Mind is a living description of the eternal and infinite wisdom" (55).
Nicholas seems to suggest (pg 47) that Platonism and Aristotelianism are reconciled and harmonized once the hierarchy of minds is grasped, with all human minds reflecting the Infinite Mind (God) in its overwhelming beauty. There are not plural exemplars (Plato's ideas) since all things, concepts, and ideas subsist in the Divine Simplicity itself, the Mind of God. The layman says, "You know how the divine simplicity folds everything up in itself. Mind is an image of this enfolding simplicity" (49). In a subtle passage we read, "As God is the enfolding of enfoldings, so the mind, God's image, is the image of the enfolding of enfoldings. After the images come the plurality of things; these unfold what is folded up in God, just as number unfolds unity, motion unfolds rest, time unfolds eternity, composition unfolds simplicity. Time unfolds the present, magnitude the point, inequality equality, diversity identity, and so on" (51). (This might be the most important passage in the dialogue.)
About names, the layman says, "Therefore there is one ineffable word which is the exact name of everything which is named by human reason" (47). His is the Name beyond speech which is behind every name that humans have or give because of their power of reason. "Every name is the image of the exact name" (47). Therefore, if one could know the exact name of one of God's works, one would know God; "Since the divine Word is the exactness of every name that can be named, it is clear that only in the Word is it possible for all and each to be known" (49).
The problem of the One and the many (or, the plurality of all things alongside the existence of an omnipotent Creator) is solved by the layman in a decidedly brilliant way: "The plurality of things arises from this, that the mind of God understands one thing in a certain way and a second thing in another way. If you attend sharply you will discover that the plurality of things is no more than the way the divine mind understands" (59). But where God thinks and creates, we think and assimilate, that is, make comparisons and form opinions (62). So our thinking that is assimilation is a reflection of God's thinking which is creation.
In a very interesting part of the dialogue, the layman argues that number is the exemplar of all mental concepts, for number is the unfolding of unity just as minds are the unfolding of Mind (61). Similarly, motion is the unfolding of rest (73). These passages which utilize mathematics (arithmetic and geometry) are subtle and difficult, especially because this more ancient way of understanding reality is lost on moderns who only use math when buying things or gambling. Basically, it is math that allows us to distinguish things from one another (arithmetic, music) and math that allows us to gauge the size of things (geometry, astronomy). So only by education in the classical quadrivium do we learn how to comprehend the wholeness of things and thus become philosophers (77). Without training in arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy, no one can possibly become a philosopher.
In another ver helpful passage that is also beautiful, the layman summarizes: "Mind is a living measure which achieves its own capacity by measuring other things. Everything it does is to come to know itself, yet searching in all things it does not find its own measure except where all things are one. There is the truth of mind's exactness, for there is found an exemplar which is its match" (75). The etymology of 'mens' from 'mensura' is key.
Chapter 11 is a fascinating demonstration of how everything in God is Triune, and that, therefore, our human mind (God's image) is triune. The human mind's capacity for being assimilated, its capacity of assimilating, and the connection between them, is a mirror of the Trinity (79). This is a difficult and dense, but highly rewarding chapter. If anything else, Nicholas is arguing for a nesting conformity, an imaging and patterning, of our human capacities on God as Trinity. It is a way of re-theologizing the world and should be given attention by modern theologians and Christian psychologists. But not only the mind, but indeed, all things, mirror the Trinity, for all things are exist in matter, form, and their connection (81).
Toward the end of this trinitarian segment, the layman says, "But since all things necessarily obey the omnipotent will, God's will requires no other executor. For in omnipotence willing and executing coincide, somewhat as when the glassblower makes a piece of glassware. For he blows into the glass his own breath, which brings about his will. And in that breath resides both word or concept and power. For were the power and concept of the glassblower not present in the breath he blows out, the glass would not take on such a shape" (87). An amazing illustration. The work of God is Triune; what the Father carries out through the Wisdom of the Son He wills by the Spirit. "So every mind, even ours, though created below all others, has from God that, in the way it can, it is a perfect and living image of the infinite art. Therefore it exists as three and one; it has power, wisdom, and the connection of both in such as way that, as a perfect image of that art, once stimulated it can make itself even more and more like its exemplar" (87). This sounds like Hegel (or maybe Schelling) inverted. But it's far, far more radical than anything from the German Idealists centuries later. It's nothing other than divination through the grace of the Divine Mind, the God who is Triune.
January 6, 2024
Fasst die Gedanken des NvK nicht ganz so klar zusammen wie De Docta Ignorantia, aber ist sehr wertvoll als Ergänzung!
July 21, 2014
In diesem Buch wird ein Vergleich angestellt zwischen menschlichem und göttlichen Geist. Das Begreifen des göttlichen Geistes ist Hervorbringen der Dinge, das Begreifen des menschlichen Geistes ist begriffliches Erkennen der Dinge. Demnach gibt es zwei Arten von Namen einen natürlichen Namen (den nur Gott kennt) und einen durch den menschlichen Verstand beigelegten Namen, der nur ein Abbild ist und von den menschlichen Meinungen und Sprachen abhängig ist. Alles ist in Gott, als Urbilder der Dinge; alles ist in unserem Geist, als Ähnlichkeiten der Dinge.
Nikolaus von Kues spricht in diesem Buch auch von einer anerschaffenen Urteilskraft des Menschen (A priori Fähigkeit von Natur aus). Über Unendlichkeit wird der Unterschied zwischen einer möglichen Unendlichkeit (Vorstellung des Geistes)und der Realität, die eigentlich keine Unendlichkeit kennt, deutlich. Der Geist misst alles.(Kapitel 9)
Nikolaus von Kues spricht in diesem Buch auch von einer anerschaffenen Urteilskraft des Menschen (A priori Fähigkeit von Natur aus). Über Unendlichkeit wird der Unterschied zwischen einer möglichen Unendlichkeit (Vorstellung des Geistes)und der Realität, die eigentlich keine Unendlichkeit kennt, deutlich. Der Geist misst alles.(Kapitel 9)
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