Week 1, Nicholas of Cusa

Nicholas of Cusa sets out to examine the source of human knowledge. When he states that “every inquiry is comparative and uses the means of comparative relation,” he suggests that everything we know is a result of comparing with other knowledge. I take this to mean that we know what a sphere is because we are told that a sphere is round from the knowledge of our elders. Then, we compare the shape of a triangle and see that it is different. Hence, we have knowledge of the triangle in comparison to the sphere.

Next, Nicholas explains the difficulty in realizing where the original comparisons came from. When ideas that have been built upon slowly over time, its origins become lost. For example, language is used to represent (i.e. compare) objects and ideas. As time passes, language evolves upon itself, and the original comparisons become lost. Also, abstract concepts such as infinity are impossible to compare. That is why we do not fully understand their meaning. Hence, we cannot truly understand anything because we do not have a true comparison to its origin.

Some philosophers, such as Pythagoras, “deem all things to be constituted and understood through the power of numbers.” This idea hypothesizes that numbers are the only thing that is concrete, and that the world is made up of numbers. Everything else would be by “comparative relation” and abstract. However, since numbers are infinite and we cannot understand infinity by comparative relation, numbers are also impossible to fully understand.

Because of the difficulty in truly understanding abstract ideas and comparative relation, “wisdom and the seat of understanding are hidden from the eyes of all the living.” Though we desire to know all things, the true origins of thought are impossible to understand. When we fully grasp this concept “we will attain unto learned ignorance.” Nicholas of Cusa deducts, through a series of proofs, that we know nothing. Like Socrates, he understands that the root of all knowledge comes from knowing nothing. The fact that this is a recurring motif in philosophy demonstrates its importance at the root of our understanding.