This section contains 9,213 words (approx. 31 pages at 300 words per page) |
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SOURCE: Hopkins, Jasper. Introduction to Nicholas of Cusa on Learned Ignorance: A Translation and an Appraisal of De Docta Ignorantia, pp. 1-43. Minneapolis, Minn.: Arthur J. Banning Press, 1981.
In this excerpt from his edition of De Docta Ignorantia, Hopkins explicates the Cusan concept of “Maximum Absolutum.” Hopkins also provides a brief introduction to the whole work and its emphasis on the human inability to know any given thing perfectly, although limited knowledge is possible.
A mélange of intellectual tension and excitement pervaded the Universities of Heidelberg, Padua, and Cologne, where Nicholas of Cusa (1401-64) studied in the early fifteenth century. The ecclesiastical clash between the competitive claimants to the papacy—a rivalry adjudicated by the powerful Council of Constance (1414-18)—had badly divided the faculties of law by engendering the dispute over the Conciliar Movement. Moreover, the theological faculties had scarcely adjusted to the prolonged debate between...
This section contains 9,213 words (approx. 31 pages at 300 words per page) |
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