Gotteserkenntnis und Gottesbegriff in den philosophischen Schriften des Nikolaus von Kues (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 105 inquiry with special attention to application in the physical writings as well as the logical might prove extremely helpful. ABRAHAM EDEL The Graduate School, CUNY Gotteserkenntnis und Gottesbegriff in den philosophischen Schri[ten des Nikolaus von Kues. By Siegfried Dangelmayr. Monographien zur philosophischen Forschung, Band 54. (Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain, 1969. Pp. 321) This dense and learned monograph examines the knowledge and concept of God in the metaphysics of Nicholas of Cues. Since God is in every respect the central principle in this thinker, this work serves as an introduction to his entire philosophy and theology. Solidly based on original texts, this work offers a wealth of information and interpretation of Nicholas' thought, although without much historical background. The first part of the work, on knowledge of God, follows to some extent the chronology of Nicholas' writings, beginning with De docta ignorantia. The author rightly sees Nicholas as part of the long neo-Platonic tradition of the Middle Ages. In that philosophy, the Platonic Good is identified with the infinite Christian God. Since God is infinite, our knowledge does not bear upon him absolutely. Nicholas calls this "learned ignorance": since our knowing, intelligere, bears only upon relations, it does not embrace God, who is above all oppositions and relations (p. 28). In any philosophy of neo-Platonic inspiration, the being of the many lies in their relation to the one. So, to know creatures is to understand them as constituted by their relation to God, not by any being which is intrinsic to creatures. In this theology, which is both speculative and mystical, creatures are mysteries, aenigmata (p. 153), through which the one, or God, unfolds himself into a many by means of his creative word, Verbum (p. 77). The author lays this out with great skill, notwithstanding some historical errors, such as his notion that Plotinus identified the One with the highest being, Sein, when that sage in fact says and means quite the opposite. Nevertheless, the constant tendency to interpret Nicholas in terms of Hegel and Fichte diminishes the merit of this work. Hegel's absoluter Geist (p. 52) or das absolute Wissen (p. 55) are not hinted at by Nicholas, who would be astonished to hear that God is absolute concept, Begriff (p. 137). In the second part of this work, many of Dangelmayr's analyses are excellent and accurate. Nicholas calls God "can-is," possest, a term he coined to suggest that God is not pure act (as in Thomas, for example), but rather is above the distinction of act and potency (p. 305). Act and potency are only special cases of otherness, or many-ness, or relatedness, and God precedes the whole distinction between being and ability to be (p. 293). The few comparisons with Thomas are very suggestive and make the reader wish for more. In Thomas, God is being itself, ipsurn esse, since ability to be, posse, is only a relation to esse. "In Nicholas, God is the posse which precedes any ability to be something. Ability to be, in turn, must precede any actual being. In Nicholas' peculiar neo-Platonic terminology, God is not identified with being but with ability to be, which precedes all the relative and finite beings. Thus being finds its source and explanation in God's universal presence; he is the posse prior to the distinction between being and not-being. In the latter haft of the book, however, Dangelmayr's tendency to interpret Nicholas as an Hegelian, come to torment us before the time, becomes quite unbearable. To ascribe to Nicholas the notion of "the unfolding of the self-reflection of thought" (p. 307) is simply to substitute Hegel's philosophy in place of the original. Other examples 106 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY of this lamentable improving of Nicholas into an absolute idealist are too numerous to cite. The rico-Platonic Christian theology of Nicholas is not a lisping Hegelianism but an entirely different metaphysics, making excellent sense in its own terms and in no need of modernization. The scholarly value of Dangelmayr's learned work is much diminished by such disastrous reinterpretations. PAUL J. W. MILLER University o/ Colorado Leibniz's Philosophy...