Cusanus‘s On Learned Ignorance is one of the most fascinating things I’ve read in a long time. Particular points of interest:
- Book I features a demonstration that an infinite line is also equal to an infinite triangle, circle, and sphere. I’m convinced.
- Book II outlines a cosmology that is, in its basic principles, identical to Kepler’s — the universe doesn’t have a center, and there are no perfect circles in nature. He derives this stance from theological principles. My jaw may literally have dropped.
I found the introduction in the “Classics of Western Spirituality” edition
Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Wasn’t Cusanus the guy who held that God had inconsistent properties? Graham Priest mentions him favorably as one of the few brave souls to deny the law of noncontradiction before Priest did.
Thursday, October 18, 2007 at 8:19 am
He is most famous for the notion of coincidentia oppositorum.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007 at 4:30 pm
[...] etymology is accurate, but Cusanus’ use of it in On Learned Ignorance — wherein he anticipates Kepler’s cosmology — set off a series of associations in my [...]
Friday, November 2, 2007 at 11:28 am
Kepler discusses his debt to Nicholas at the beginning of the Mystery of the Cosmos.