Article
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Nicholas of Cusa in dialogue with his sources: the redefinition of Platonism
Claudia D’AMICO
Original title: Nicolás de Cusa en diálogo con sus fuentes: la re-definición del platonismo
Published in Nicholas of Cusa in Dialogue
Keywords: Medieval Platonism, Nicholas of Cusa, Sources.
This paper presents the Cusanus’s thought given its knowledge of the Platonic tradition considering its Christian version –Dionysius, Scotus Eriugena, the Chartrenses, Meister Eckhart, Bertold of Moosburg – as some authors Athenian Neoplatonism, especially Proclus. The text is divided into three points (I) the presence of this tradition in early works; (II) the defense of these sources in the Apologia doctae ignorantiae; (III) the reinterpretation of tradition from new receiving texts from 1450.
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Considerations on Nicholas of Cusa’s De genesi. Thinking beyond the coincidentia oppositorum in light of the enigmatic name “idem”
José GONZÁLEZ RÍOS
Original title: Consideraciones en torno al De genesi de Nicolás de Cusa. Pensar más allá de la coincidentia oppositorum a la luz del nombre enigmático “idem”
Published in Nicholas of Cusa in Dialogue
Keywords: De genesi, Nicholas of Cusa, Thinking beyond the coincidentia oppositorum, “Idem”.
In De docta ignorantia (1440), Nicholas of Cusa presents the first comprehensive formulation of his system of thought. In De coniecturis, which he began writing at the time, he not only completes the anthropology and theory of knowledge, which he suggested in De docta ignorantia, but also presents the proposal of thinking the divine beyond thecoincidentia oppositorum. In the following years, he writes a group of opuscula in which he revists the topics treated in his previous works. Notorious amongst them is the dialog De genesi (1447). In it, Cusanus speculates on one of the most cherished subjects of his investigation, i.e. the relationship between the one and the multiple, by means of a new aenigmatic name: “idem”. Our work seeks to show that Nicholas of Cusa conjectures about that problem –in terms of identity and difference– in taking up his proposal of thinking the absolute beyond the coincidentia oppositorum.
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The All-seeing of Nicholas of Cusa: Icon or Picture?
Anca MANOLESCU
Original title: L’omnivoyant de Nicolas de Cues: tableau ou icône?
Published in Nicholas of Cusa in Dialogue
Keywords: Icon, Path of mystical knowledge, Picture, Theory of image.
The treaty De visione Dei, with the alternative title De icona, was translated in French by Agnès Minazzoli as Le tableau ou la vision de Dieu. The path of mystical knowledge commences indeed with an image of the All-seeing: an image which is „artistic”, „manufactured”, as the one produced by the art of the „great master Roger”. But in the „experiment” for which Nicholas of Cusa gathered his friends, the Benedictines of Tegernsee, is this image regarded just as an artistic picture? Does the „meeting of eyes” between the monks and the portrait not have the intensity of a personal communication? Hence, we wonder if Nicholas of Cusa does not regard this image as both a picture and an icon. The picture manufactured by artistic craft, the icon that houses the presence of the divine – what is the relation between these two instances of image in the cardinal’s thought? It has already been said that Nicholas of Cusa has phrased the content of medieval Wisdom in the modern language of the Renaissance. But doesn’t he also propose a new way of relating to the image of the divine? A way that blends concepts from both Eastern and Western Christianity and still manages to innovate on both „official” theories of image.
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The Love as the greatest virtue in the Sermons of Nicholas of Cusa
Maria Simone Marinho NOGUEIRA
Original title: O Amor como a maior das virtudes nos Sermões de Nicolau de Cusa
Published in Nicholas of Cusa in Dialogue
Keywords: Love, Nicholas of Cusa, Sermons, Virtue.
Nicholas of Cusa approached the theme of love throughout his philosophical-theological work. A part of this work, however, deserves our special attention when we analyze this theme. We refer to the Sermons: in various moments of his life the German Thinker has prepared and preached these writings. We propose, from them, a reflection on the love as the greatest of virtues.
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Possest: indications for thinking relationality principle in Nicholas of Cusa
José TEIXEIRA NETO
Original title: Possest: indicações para se pensar a relacionalidade do princípio em Nicolau de Cusa
Published in Nicholas of Cusa in Dialogue
Keywords: Nicholas of Cusa, Possest, Unitrinity.
We hope to achieve with the term possest one name, like other divine names, leading to the understanding of the principle. In this case, more specifically, we believe that possest indicates as enigma, the trinity of principle and further speculates that leads to the nexus that shows how key element to understanding this same unitrinity and, therefore, the idea of the first principle in itself is relational. Among all cusanus works the term “possest” only appears in three texts called “late period”. Appears on De apice theoriae (1464) probably the last work written by Nicholas of Cusa. In turn, the De venatione sapientiae (1463) the possest will be the second field, immediately after and before the learned ignorance of non aliud, which takes hunting wisdom. The themes taken up in De venatione sapientiae been deeply addressed in De possest (1460) that constitutes as a “trialogue” between Nicholas of Cusa , Bernardo of Krayburg, chancellor of the Archbishop of Salzburg, and John André Vigevio, secretary of Nicholas and then bishop of Aleria.
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The relation between wealth, timē, axia and moira in the Homeric poems
Adriana Santos TABOSA
Original title: A relação entre riqueza, timē, axia e moira nos poemas homéricos
Published in Nicholas of Cusa in Dialogue
Keywords: Axia, Homer, Moira, Timē.
This paper analyzes the concept of wealth and its relation to the equation timē-axia-moira and the relation between the fundamental concepts of timē − agalmata contained in the Homeric poems.
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Imperial administration and acquirement power in Late Antiquity: power agents from the viewpoint of Synesius
José Petrúcio de FARIAS JUNIOR
Original title: Administração imperial e aquisição de poder na Antiguidade Tardia: agentes de poder sob a ótica de Sinésio
Published in Nicholas of Cusa in Dialogue
Keywords: De Providentia, De Regno, Imperial Administration, Synesius of Cyrene, Theodosian Code.
Based on the comparative analysis between the Theodosian Code, specifically the laws promulgated in the fourth century, and the discourses De Regno and De Providentia of Synesius of Cyrene, produced on the occasion of his embassy to Constantinople, we reflect on the strategies of acquiring political power in Late Roman Empire, in view of the legal and non-legal institutional mechanisms that ensured the entry for political office in the imperial administration and how such mechanisms reaffirmed the theory of decline of the Roman Empire by contemporary historiography.
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Albert the Great and the treatise De Prudentia
Matteo RASCHIETTI
Original title: Alberto Magno e o tratado De Prudentia
Published in Nicholas of Cusa in Dialogue
Keywords: Albert the Great, Auriga, Prudence, Virtues.
Last part of the Summa creaturis (or Summa Parisiensis), written by the Doctor Universalis, the moral treatise De bono considers the good by the point of view moral and organizes the matter into five treaties. The fourth one is the De Prudentia, briefly presented in this article, that sticks his roots in the classical tradition, in the patristic and scholastic.
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The poetics of Love in the Roman the la Rose
Ruy de Oliveira ANDRADE FILHO, Luiz Fernando ALVES
Original title: A poética do Amor em O Romance da Rosa
Published in Nicholas of Cusa in Dialogue
Keywords: Courtly Love, Guillaume of Lorris, Jean of Meun, The Romance the la Rose, XIII Century.
We aim with this article to analyze the poetics of love in The Romance of the Rose. We think that Guillaume de Lorris’s conception of love is associated with the flourishing of the French courtly society of the XIII Century, and that Jean de Meun’s conception of love is a result of the decline of this same society. Behind the virtues offered by Guillaume to the medieval lover we find the notion of courtesy, of the art of living in society, the understanding of the poetry as a form of ethics, and the medieval poetic of desire – intimately associated with the religious mysticism appeared from the XI Century and with the troubadours’ poetry. Jean is more influenced by the Ovidian tradition of thinking about the causes and effects of love. In the first part of the poem, Guillaume idealizes the conquest of the Rose; in the second, Jean describes the cueillette of the Rose, which could be read as a rape, in an allegorical way. It is this tension between different conceptions of love in a same poem that makes possible a better comprehension of the ways people used to think and feel in the Middle Ages.
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A Proposal for a Universal Science in Ars Brevis (1308) by Ramon Llull
Fabricia dos Santos GIUBERTI
Original title: A Proposta de uma Ciência Universal na Arte Breve (1308) de Ramon Llull
Published in Nicholas of Cusa in Dialogue
Keywords: Art, Medieval Philosophy, Ramon Llull, Science.
As a passionate follower of Ramon Llull, Nicolau de Cusa, had in his personal library, several works of Catalan philosopher. One version of Art Llull which had spread over the centuries following his death was the Art Brief (1308) precisely because it is a simplification of his proposals to create a universal science idea as to suit modern thought still in gestation. The purpose of this issue is to present the general structure of his art, as the Mallorcan went down to posterity as an original innovator of medieval proposals unification of all sciences.
