Opera Omnia V: Idiota de sapientia; Idiota de mente; Idiota de staticis experimentis by Nicholas of Cusa (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Opera Omnia V: ldiota de sapientia; ldiota de mente; ldiota de staticis experimentis. By NICHOLAS OF CusA. Edited by Renate Steiger after Ludwig Baur except for the last work, which is edited by Ludwig Baur. Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1983. Pp. 315. DM 298. Nicholas of Cusa was at the height of his creative powers when he composed the three works presented here in splendid critical edition. The ldiota texts were all written between July 1 and September 13, 1450. Although the works themselves betray their hasty composition, that they were written at all is remarkable evidence of their author's genius and indefatigability. Nicholas had been consecrated Bishop of Brixen only a little over three months before the first section of the ldiota de sapientia was completed. His appointment to that see plunged him into interminable controversy with Archduke Sigismund of the Tyrol which was bitter enough to involve siege and weapons. As a matter of fact, there was scarcely a time in Nicholas's life when he was not embroiled in political strife, yet his works give the impression that their author was a peaceful contemplative surrounded only by books and thinkers. Although Nicholas had used the dialogue form for several earlier treatises, the ldiota texts show signs of a more decided identification with the humanist mode. So it is not surprising that the developments which these treatises represent should be cast in the form of an extended dialogue between the Idiot, mouthpiece for Cusanus, the Philosopher, representative of the scholastic tradition, and the Orator, spokesman for the new learning. Cusanus had just been named cardinal and bishop by Nicholas V (Tommaso Parentucelli), perhaps the most humanistically inclined of all the Renaissance popes and one who was particularly concerned to appropriate the new learning and its spirit for the Church. The new German cardinal could not identify himself completely with the humanist movement, especially with its emphasis on literary elegance. But of much else that the new movement represented he was a sympathetic and even active supporter. The ldiota dialogues are more extended, lively, and realistic than are the earlier Cusan dialogue treatises. They address in a direct and often confrontational manner the central issue of the age, namely, the true nature and significance of human knowledge. The Idiot is the wise, though unschooled, layman who came by his insight and penetrating knowledge not by reading books or engaging in scholastic disputations but by experience, by studying only that book writ158 BOOK REVIEWS 159 ten by the finger of God, the book of nature. The Orator, on the other hand, whose school-imparted knowledge came from auctoritates, is like a horse who was once free but now is led about and must eat the strange and unnatural food that others offer it. True wisdom, Cusanus (the Idiot) says, should be sought in the marketplace among the weights and measures of the shopkeepers and in the workshops of the artisans and craftsmen. This, of course, is not where the learned humanists of Nicholas's acquaintance searched for wisdom. The Idiota dialogues thus take a position on knowledge and learning which is both anti-scholastic and, at the same time, critical of the humanist obsession with literary elegance. With the humanist movement he shared the conviction that learning and wisdom were fundamental to religious reform. He knew from experience, however, that not only were books very unreliable as guides to truth, the very words to be found in them were the products of the human mind, its artifacts. The search for wisdom must then be concentrated on the operations of the mind as it interacts with the world of nature. These treatises place a great emphasis on the processes of weighing, measuring, and counting. The words experientia, experimentaliter, experimentum , and experiri occur with obvious and unusual frequency in these three texts-more frequently than indicated in this volume's index verborum , which designedly limits itself to selected occurrences. In his fascinating introductory appendix, Raymond Klibansky suggests that the term " experimental science " entered the English language because of the influence of Nicholas of Cusa's ldiota de staticis experimentis. He cites John Dee's preface to the English translation of...