Nikolaus von Kues — world-renowned philosopher and polymath
Nikolaus von Kues (Nicolaus Cusanus: 1401-1464), born as son of the rich Mosel
sailor and merchant Henn Cryfftz, received his higher education at
the Universities of Heidelberg and Padua. In keeping with the end of medieval
times, his main subjects were mystic, scholastic, canonical law and theology.
His doctoral degree was awarded by the University of Padua in canonical law.
Cusanus rejected a teaching position as lawyer in the Brabantish Leuven
and instead chose a church career. His career path was therefore predictable,
although his succession to Cardinal status was quite exceptional for his heritage
in those days. His position as Cardinal was mainly spent at the Church of
S. Pietro in Vincoli at the bottom of Monte Esquilino in Rome. An image of
Cusanus can be found on his tombstone and he is also depicted as benefactor
on the middle part of the wing altar in the Gothic chapel of the
Nikolaushospital.
While Cusanus's life was certainly exceptional, it was far from spectacular
and it is difficult to speculate why people still talk about him today. It
is unlikely that his church career has made him a significant figure, more
likely his writing about philosophy and science that made him stand out as
an avant-gardist of the new age. His work has something of a diverse flavour,
possibly due to his Italian bias and his friendship with the mathematician
Paolo Toscanelli.This may have contributed to the disparate disciplines
embraced in Cusanus's work. His unique collection of hand written pieces seems
to make him an exponent of humanism. However, as a science theoretician he
was less interested in reviving the classicism according to renaissance but
was more focused on Erkenntnislehre (=Theory of knowledge) of the Latin and
Greek world. Such studies were abandoned during medieval times and scientific
study came to a standstill for around 1000 years. Cusanus demonstrated exceptional
insight for the time and believed the natural sciences could be studied by
way of empirical and systematic experiments that were informed by the certainty
of mathematics.
How can you test, extend and communicate knowledge? How do you avoid misinterpretations
and misunderstandings? Preferably with a formal language, which ensures that
what is said is exactly what is meant and where the listener only understands
exactly what was meant to be said. An important role is played by "statements";
these are linguistic constructs that can either be "true" or "false". Through
connection of statements via logical operations such as AND and OR, new statements
are made. Statements can be reversed by means of negation. The statement "All
houses in Bad Sobernheim have red roofs" is a statement that we know to be
wrong. The reversal of this statement is not "No house in Bad Sobernheim has
a red roof" but rather "There is at least ONE house in Bad Sobernheim that
does not have a red roof". It is obvious that such a formal language connected
with precise definitions and minimal axioms constitutes a powerful instrument
in dealing with knowledge. Cusanus, despite his appreciation for the power
of the formal approach, questioned the universal application of true-false
formalism. Firstly, because there are problems that cannot be decided per
se [e.g. in a smoothly moving elevator (meaning that the elevator neither
accelerates nor slows down) without windows, it is impossible for the passengers
to determine whether the elevator is moving]. Secondly, because incomplete
or biased information over the object of study do not allow a definitive decision.
It is not only the unavoidable "measurement" errors that are problematic,
it could be more severe to approach a problem with a fixed "idea", which means
trying to generalise previous experience to new and unknown things: "Erkenntnisgewinn
durch den Vergleich zwischen Bekanntem und Unbekanntem".
Until the end of the medieval age, Cusanus occupied himself with basic scientific
theoretical questions that are still important today. It is noteworthy that
he did this long before Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) developed
non-euclidic geometry and Albert Einstein (1879-1955) developed his
theory of relativity. And Cusanus' ideas are based on thoughts contrary to
"common sense" and our idea about nature at first sight. Because in the end
it seems obvious that two parallel lines do not cross, right?