Kuzansky Nicholas: philosophy briefly and biography. The main ideas of the philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa briefly
1. Philosophy is (indicate the most correct answer):
a) the dynamic process of questioning, the search for a person's lot;
2. The term "philosophy" means:
d) love of wisdom;
3. The subject of philosophy is (indicate the most correct answer):
d) universal in the "world-man" system;
4. Philosophy has inherent functions:
d) all these functions combined.
5. Philosophy explains the world with:
d) rational argumentation;
6. Philosophy - This:
a) outlook;
7. Answers to philosophical questions are sought in:
d) arguments and conclusions of the mind;
8. The main question of philosophy is (indicate the most correct answer):
a) the question of the relation of consciousness to being, ideal to material;
9. The formulations of the main question of philosophy include (indicate all the correct options):
b) what is primary: material or ideal (Engels)? c) Is life worth living (Camus)? d) how to be happy (Socrates)?
10. Eternal philosophical questions include (indicate all correct options):
b) what is the essence of man? d) What is the meaning of life?
11. Philosophy is (indicate the most correct answer):
a) reasonable understanding of the world;
12. A necessary feature of a philosophical worldview is:
d) abstractness;
13. A stable system of world views, beliefs, ideas, beliefs of a person that determines the choice of a certain life position, attitude towards the world and other people, - This:
c) worldview;
14. Set the sequence of historical types of worldview:
b) mythology; d) religion. a) philosophy; c) science;
15. In their origins, philosophy and science relied on:
a) mythology
16. In philosophy, myth is understood as (specify the most correct answer):
d) a holistic, undivided comprehension by the primitive man of the world and the phenomena in it, built on the "revolving" logic;
17. In this picture of the world, "natural" and "supernatural" do not differ from each other:
c) in mythological;
18. The ratio of philosophy and science is that:
c) philosophy and science are partially included in each other;
19. The main sections of philosophy (indicate all the correct options):
a) ontology; d) axiology; f) anthropology; g) epistemology.
20. The doctrine of being as such. Branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental principles of being:
d) ontology;
21. Philosophical doctrine of the universal laws of knowledge - This:
a) epistemology;
22. The central problem of ontology is:
c) correlation of being and consciousness, material and ideal;
23. Axiology - this teaching:
a) about values, about their origin and essence;
24. Materialistic directions recognize the following provisions (indicate all the correct options):
a) the world consists of material bodies, each body of the smallest particles; c) matter is an objective reality; d) motion is an attribute of matter;
(2 Question) 2. Ancient philosophy
2. What form of materialism can be attributed to the teachings of Thales of Miletus:
d) spontaneous materialism.
3. Representatives of the Milesian school are called spontaneous materialists because they:
a) took material elements as the fundamental principle of the world;
4. About the teaching of this philosopher, a later author wrote:
“This cosmos, the same for everything that exists, was not created by any god and no man, but it has always been, is and will be an eternally living fire, igniting in measures and extinguishing in measures.”
e) Heraclitus.
5. The fragment “Everything flows, everything changes” expresses the essence:
a) the dialectical thoughts of Heraclitus;
d) Heraclitus;
7. This one ancient thinker first formulated the concept of "philosophy":
a) Pythagoras;
8. The number in the Pythagorean school is:
b) the beginning of the world, identical things;
9. According to Parmenides, we fall into error when we think:
a) non-existence;
10. The founder of ancient atomism is:
b) Democritus-Leucippus;
11. The ontology of Democritus is based on the principle:
a) the world consists of invisible, indivisible particles - atoms;
12. This ancient thinker considered "man the measure of all things":
a) Protagoras;
13. Socrates said: "I know that I know nothing, but..."
e) others do not know this either.
e) communication with the interlocutor in order to find the truth.
15. Idea, according to Plato:
b) non-material, but intelligible;
16. True knowledge according to Plato is:
c) recollection by the soul of ideas seen by it in another world;
17. This ancient philosopher wrote: “ Since the soul is immortal, there is nothing that it would not know; therefore, it is not surprising that she is able to remember what she previously knew. And since everything in nature is related to each other, and the soul has known everything, nothing prevents the one who remembered one thing, find yourself and everything else: after all, to seek and to know - that's what it means to remember."
c) Plato;
18. Plato's "State" was:
c) a state of a caste type, with a clear class division;
19. Plato in his "State" divided society into three estates:
d) philosophers, warriors, artisans;
20. According to Aristotle, every thing is:
c) the unity of matter and form;
21. This ancient philosopher wrote:«... State - product of natural development and that man by nature - a political being. Whoever lives by virtue of his nature, and not as a result of random circumstances, outside the state, he is either a superman or a creature that is morally underdeveloped. ..»
a) Aristotle
22. In their ethical concept, the Stoics put forward:
a) the ideal of a sage who dispassionately endures the blows of fate;
23. Determine the teaching of which philosopher the following principles belong:
1. water; d) Thales; 2. apeiron; b) Anaximander; 3. fire; e) Heraclitus. 4. number; c) Pythagoras; 5. atoms; a) Democritus
24. Determine in the concepts of which ancient philosophers the following categories play a dominant role:
1. Plato; b) idea; 2. Heraclitus; a) logos; 3. Aristotle; d) form; 4. Democritus; e) atom; 5. Empedocles; e) love; g) hatred.
25. Establish the conformity of the philosopher to one or another school:
1. Parmenides; b) eleian school; 2. Democritus; a) atomists; 3. Anaximander; c) Milesian school; 4. Plotinus; d) neoplatonism; 5. Pyrrho; e) skeptics.
26. Set the correspondence of the philosopher to the philosophical direction:
1. materialism; b) Democritus; d) Epicurus; 2. idealism; a) Parmenides; d) Plato. c) Aristotle;
27. Match the teacher to the student:
1. Plato; b) Aristotle; 2. Socrates; d) Plato. 3. Aristotle; c) Alexander the Great; 4. Thales; a) Anaximander;
28. Set the sequence of philosophical teachings of antiquity:
b) "all from water"; c) “the basis of everything is the number”; a) "the world of ideas"; d) "refraining from judgment."
29. Set the sequence of philosophical schools of antiquity:
b) Milesian school; a) Pythagoreans d) Academy; c) Likey; e) Neoplatonists.
e) others do not know this either.
e) communication with the interlocutor in order to find the truth.
15. Idea, according to Plato:
b) non-material, but intelligible;
16. True knowledge according to Plato is:
c) recollection by the soul of ideas seen by it in another world;
17. This ancient philosopher wrote: “Since the soul is immortal, there is nothing that it would not know; therefore, it is not surprising that she is able to remember what she previously knew. And since everything in nature is related to each other, and the soul has known everything, nothing prevents the one who remembered one thing from finding everything else for himself: after all, to seek and to know is exactly what it means to remember.
c) Plato;
18. Plato's "State" was:
c) a state of a caste type, with a clear class division;
19. Plato in his "State" divided society into three estates:
d) philosophers, warriors, artisans;
20. According to Aristotle, every thing is:
c) the unity of matter and form;
21. This ancient philosopher wrote: “... The state is a product of natural development and that a person by nature is a political being. Whoever lives by virtue of his nature, and not as a result of random circumstances, outside the state, he is either a superman, or a creature that is morally underdeveloped ... "
a) Aristotle
22. In their ethical concept, the Stoics put forward:
a) the ideal of a sage who dispassionately endures the blows of fate;
23. Determine the teaching of which philosopher the following principles belong:
1. water; d) Thales; 2. apeiron; b) Anaximander; 3. fire; e) Heraclitus. 4. number; c) Pythagoras; 5. atoms; a) Democritus
24. Determine in which concepts ancient philosophers The following categories play a dominant role:
1. Plato; b) idea; 2. Heraclitus; a) logos; 3. Aristotle; d) form; 4. Democritus; e) atom; 5. Empedocles; e) love; g) hatred.
25. Establish the conformity of the philosopher to one or another school:
1. Parmenides; b) the Elean school; 2. Democritus; a) atomists; 3. Anaximander; c) Milesian school; 4. Plotinus; d) neoplatonism; 5. Pyrrho; e) skeptics.
26. Set the correspondence of the philosopher to the philosophical direction:
1. materialism; b) Democritus; d) Epicurus; 2. idealism; a) Parmenides; d) Plato. c) Aristotle;
27. Match the teacher to the student:
1. Plato; b) Aristotle; 2. Socrates; d) Plato. 3. Aristotle; c) Alexander the Great; 4. Thales; a) Anaximander;
28. Set the sequence of philosophical teachings of antiquity:
b) "all from water"; c) “the basis of everything is the number”; a) "the world of ideas"; d) "refraining from judgment."
29. Set the sequence of philosophical schools of antiquity:
b) Milesian school; a) Pythagoreans d) Academy; c) Likey; e) Neoplatonists.
(question 3) 3. Medieval philosophy
1. The fundamental ideas of the Bible include (indicate all the correct options):
a) the creation of the world out of nothing; e) Man is created in the image and likeness of God.
2. The main dogma of the Christian doctrine regarding God is:
c) God, being one and only, exists in three hypostases;
3. The main dogma of Christianity:
b) trinity;
4. The religious-Christian understanding of man claims that:
d) man is the “crown of creation” and the ruler of everything created for him by God;
5. At the center of the reflections of the philosophers of the Middle Ages is:
6. The most important section of knowledge in the Middle Ages:
b) theology;
7. Medieval epistemology is based on the idea:
c) revelations;
8. The theory of the justification of God in relation to the evil he allows in the world is called:
d) theodicy;
9. Medieval philosophical thought:
c) used the ideas of individual philosophers, processing them in accordance with their own needs;
10. The Christian-religious understanding of history means:
a) history is a rectilinear movement from the fall to the day of judgment;
11. Apologists in the 2nd century. n. e.:
b) defended, justified the Christian dogma;
12. A new quality of a person discovered by medieval patristics:
13. Central object philosophical reflection Augustine does:
14. The basis of spiritual life in the concept of Augustine is:
15. The highest criterion of truth in the concept of Augustine:
c) revelation;
16. Challenge medieval philosophy, from the point of view of the scholastics, was that:
c) find rational evidence of faith;
17. Scholasticism proclaimed a distinction between:
a) faith and reason;
18. The subject of the dispute about universals was:
c) the real existence of general concepts;
19. In the debate about universals, realists:
a) attributed existence to the common;
20. Nominalism in its attack on the strict rationalization of religious dogmas, thereby:
b) paved the way for the separation of theology from philosophy;
21. On the issue of the relationship between philosophy and religion, Thomas Aquinas put forward the thesis that:
c) religion is not extra- and not anti-rational, it is super-rational;
22. Thomas Aquinas adhered to the concept:
d) the superiority of faith over knowledge.
23. The teaching of Thomas Aquinas and the whole religious and philosophical direction, created by him, is called:
b) Thomism;
24. In his discussion of God, Thomas Aquinas:
b) recognized God as completely transcendent, unknowable;
25. Exploring the problems of the human soul, Thomas Aquinas proceeded from the fact that:
a) the soul is a pure form without matter, it is incorporeal;
26. This medieval thinker owns the five most complete ways of proving the existence of God:
b) Thomas Aquinas;
27. Set the correspondence of the philosopher to the philosophical direction:
1. realism; d) Thomas Aquinas. b) Anselm of Canterbury; 2. nominalism; a) William of Ockham c) John Roscelin;
28. Set the sequence of philosophers of the Middle Ages:
c) Philo of Alexandria; d) Tertullian. b) Bl. Augustine; a) Thomas Aquinas
29. Set the sequence of occurrence philosophical writings:
d) "On the Beginnings" Origen. a) "About the city of God" Bl. Augustine; c) "On Divine Names" by Dionysius the Areopagite; b) "The Sum of Theology" by Thomas Aquinas;
30. Match philosophical treatise one philosopher or another.
1. "About the city of God"; b) Bl. Augustine; 2. "The sum of theology"; d) Thomas Aquinas. 3. "On divine names"; a) Dionysius the Areopagite 4. "On the beginnings"; c) Origen;
(Question 4) 4. Philosophy of the Renaissance and Modern Times
1. The most famous work of Nicholas of Cusa is called:
c) "On scientific ignorance";
2. In his theory of knowledge, F. Bacon adhered to the concept:
e) dual truth.
3. According to the majority of historians of philosophy, F. Bacon was the ancestor of the European:
c) empiricism and materialism;
4. The main working method of F. Bacon is:
d) induction;
5. The generally accepted systems of thought (syllogistics and scholasticism) Bacon attributed to ghosts (idols):
d) theater.
6. The initial principle of Descartes' philosophizing:
a) doubt
7. Before declaring: “I think, therefore I am”, Descartes stated:
b) “everything should be doubted”;
8. According to Descartes, the substance is extended and the substance is spiritual:
b) exist independently of each other;
d) two independent substances - thinking and extension;
10. The main attribute of matter, according to Descartes, is:
b) length (prevalence);
11. Descartes considered the main method of obtaining true and practically useful facts:
c) rational deduction;
12. A number of philosophical trends that develop the ideas of Descartes are called in the history of philosophy:
a) Cartesianism;
13. Spinoza used an unusual method of presentation in his Ethics:
c) geometric;
14. The attributes of substance (nature), according to Spinoza, are:
c) thinking and extension;
15. Based on the concept of the physical unity of the universe, J. Bruno expressed the idea:
a) the cosmos is infinity, as an eternal uncreated being (god);
16. The philosophy of nature by J. Bruno is:
c) pantheism;
17. In the form of Leviathan considered the state:
18. According to Locke, the basis of all knowledge is:
a) sensation
19. This philosopher first divided power into three types (judicial, legislative and executive):
20. Enlightenment philosophy as a whole is characterized by:
a) faith in human reason, knowledge and social progress;
21. This philosopher directly identified man with the machine:
c) Lametrie;
22. Voltaire believed that religion arose when they met:
d) a swindler and a fool.
23. The ideological leader, organizer and compiler of the first "Encyclopedia" was:
24. Rousseau believed that the development of culture forms a person's needs:
b) artificial;
25. Set the correspondence of the philosopher to the philosophical direction:
1. empiricism; a) Bacon c) Locke; d) Hobbes; 2. rationalism; b) Descartes; e) Spinoza.
26. Set the sequence of occurrence of philosophical works:
a) "On learned ignorance" Nicholas of Cusa; c) "On the Infinity of the Universe and the Worlds" by Bruno; e) "New Atlantis" Bacon. d) "Ethics" of Spinoza; b) Rousseau's "On the Social Contract";
27. Establish the correspondence of the philosophical treatise to one or another philosopher:
1. "On scientific ignorance"; c) Nicholas of Cusa; 2. "On the social contract"; d) Rousseau. 3. "Reasoning about the method"; b) Descartes; 4. "Leviathan"; d) Hobbes; 5. "New Atlantis"; a) Bacon
(question 5) 5. German classical philosophy
1. In the philosophical work of I. Kant, periods are distinguished:
a) subcritical and critical;
2. The philosophical treatise Critique of Pure Reason was written:
c) Kant;
3. According to Kant, the transcendent is:
e) absolutely unknowable.
4. According to Kant, the “thing in itself” is:
c) the existing world, which is completely inaccessible to us and can never become an object of our knowledge;
5. In addition to phenomena, Kant distinguishes:
a) the world of things in themselves;
6. According to Kant, an object and a phenomenon in the world, given in perception, for a knowing subject is:
b) a phenomenon;
a) space and time;
8. According to Kant's theory, time and space:
b) do not really exist, but necessarily precede sensory experience;
9. Kant substantiates the moral law, according to which a person is an “end in itself”, because:
d) a person must coordinate his autonomous motivation with the motivation of other people, considering them as an end in themselves;
c) common law;
11. According to Kant, the categorical imperative is:
e) an immutable moral requirement, a moral law.
12. According to Kant, the moral value of an act is the higher, the more it is:
a) complies with applicable law;
13. In his theory of aesthetic judgment, Kant first characterized the aesthetically pleasing in terms of:
d) disinterest;
14. Hegel's philosophy is:
b) absolute objective idealism;
15. Dialectics in philosophical system Hegel:
a) speculative-idealistic;
16. According to Hegel, the fundamental principle of all things is:
c) absolute idea (world spirit);
17. In Hegel's system, world development is:
a) development of the spirit (absolute idea);
18. In the Science of Logic, Hegel substantiates the thesis:
d) everything that is reasonable is real.
19. Hegel viewed history in his Philosophy of History as:
c) the development of the world spirit in time;
20. The philosophy of L. Feuerbach is:
a) materialism;
21. The materialistic concept of L. Feuerbach was called:
e) anthropological materialism.
22. Feuerbach considered the main object of knowledge:
c) a person;
23. Feuerbach considered religion:
c) attributing human attributes to God;
24. The "new ethics and religion of man", which Feuerbach called for, is religion and ethics:
25. Match Philosopher philosophical teaching:
1. transcendental idealism; b) Kant; 2. anthropological materialism; d) Feuerbach. 3. absolute idealism; a) Hegel; 4. philosophy of identity; c) Schelling;
26. Establish the correspondence of the philosophical treatise to one or another philosopher:
1. "Critique of Pure Reason"; b) Kant; 2. "On the essence of Christianity"; d) Feuerbach. 3. "Science of logic"; a) Hegel; 4. "The system of transcendental idealism"; c) Schelling;
(6.7 questions) 6. Western European philosophy XIX-XX centuries
1. The philosophy of K. Marx is called:
a) dialectical materialism;
2. According to Marx, the basis for the development of society is the development of:
b) productive forces;
3. The fundamental formula of Marxist philosophy for the analysis of social life means:
b) being determines consciousness;
4. One of the stages in the development of positivism was:
d) empirio-criticism;
5. Prominent figures of the so-called "first positivism" were:
b) O. Comte; c) G. Spencer;
6. O. Comte was convinced that in science it is necessary to strive to replace the word “why” in a word:
7. According to the teachings of O. Comte, the development of human society goes through three stages in sequence:
b) theological - metaphysical - positive;
8. O. Comte hoped to replace all social sciences:
c) sociology;
9. According to G. Spencer, the original, all-encompassing and incomprehensible is manifested in the Universe:
10. G. Spencer formulated his fundamental law that the continuous redistribution of existing bodily particles and their movements is:
a) evolution;
11. In sociology, G. Spencer considered society as a kind of "organism" that strives for a state:
c) balance;
12. A famous statement of pragmatism:
b) truth - that which is useful;
13. The representative of the "philosophy of life" is:
14. One of the main categories of the "philosophy of life" is:
15. In the teachings of Schopenhauer, the world around us is just a collection of ideas that are most associated with the concept:
16. Gravity, magnetism, animal instincts, human behavior - all this, according to Schopenhauer, is a manifestation:
17. According to Schopenhauer, the World Will is a force (indicate all the correct options):
b) unconscious, blind and wild; e) the only and baseless.
18. According to Schopenhauer, human life in general there are:
c) suffering;
19. According to Schopenhauer, salvation from eternal suffering can be obtained if:
d) conquer desire, passion;
20. According to Schopenhauer, human history is:
c) a senseless interweaving of events;
21. The greatest influence on the philosophy of Schopenhauer had (indicate all the correct options):
a) the teachings of Kant; d) the teachings of the Buddha;
22. Schopenhauer's philosophy is:
b) pessimistic doctrine;
23. A psychological concept that largely determined philosophical anthropology S. Kierkegaard:
24. The central idea of the philosophy of S. Kierkegaard:
c) a spiritual individual, a single person opposes the social environment and improves in spite of it and its laws;
25. S. Kierkegaard considered three stages of the existence of the human spirit:
c) aesthetic - ethical - religious;
26. The fundamental concept in the philosophy of F. Nietzsche is:
b) the will to power;
27. F. Nietzsche substantiated the idea:
c) eternal return;
28. In the field scientific knowledge According to Nietzsche, truth is:
d) a useful misconception.
29. The ideal person of the future, according to Nietzsche, is:
d) superman.
30. In the philosophy of A. Bergson, life is understood as:
a) changeable, creative stream of consciousness;
31. Peru Berson owns a treatise:
G) " creative evolution»;
32. The basis of knowledge, according to A. Bergson, is:
d) intuition.
33. According to the teachings of Z. Freud, life in general and most of the specific actions of a person are determined by:
b) unconscious;
34. According to psychoanalysis, the culture of mankind is built on:
d) sublimation of primary complexes;
35. The archetype, according to K. Jung, is:
d) collective forms and images emanating from mythological consciousness and lifestyle;
36. The basic setting of existentialism means:
d) existence precedes essence;
37. Fundamental characteristic human existence in existentialism is:
b) freedom;
38. In existentialism, existential time is associated with such concepts as (indicate all the correct options):
c) determination; d) abandonment;
39. According to M. Heidegger and J.P. Sartre, being directed towards nothingness and conscious of its finiteness is:
c) existence;
e) being-towards-death.
41. The concept of “border situation” plays a special role in:
e) existentialism.
42. Life is absurd, according to:
43. From the point of view of the Baden school of neo-Kantianism, there are two main scientific methods:
c) generalizing and individualizing;
44. The representative of the Baden school of neo-Kantianism, W. Windelband, proposed his division of sciences into sciences:
a) about nature and about the spirit;
45. In the phenomenology of E. Husserl, the concept of "intentionality" - This:
a) an essential property of all acts of consciousness, the focus of consciousness on an object that is outside consciousness itself;
46. In hermeneutics, the main task of philosophy, according to G. Gadamer, is:
c) interpretation and comprehension of the text, which can be any object;
47. The central characteristic of the existence of man and the way of his being, according to G. Gadamer, is:
c) knowledge;
48. Establish the belonging of a philosopher to one or another philosophical school (direction):
a) Sartre, Camus, Heidegger; 2) existentialism; b) Nietzsche, Schopenhauer; 1) "philosophy of life"; c) Windelband, Rickert; 5) neo-Kantianism. d) Freud, Jung; 3) psychoanalysis; e) Miles, Spencer. 4) positivism;
49. Establish the correspondence of the philosophical treatise to one or another philosopher:
1. "Being and time"; d) Heidegger; 2. "Will to power"; c) Nietzsche; 3. "Capital"; b) Marx; 4. "The world as will and representation"; e) Schopenhauer. 5. "Course of positive philosophy"; a) Comte;
(question 8) 7. Questions of increased complexity (history of philosophy)
1. Match the philosopher and the era:
a) Augustine the Blessed; 4) Middle Ages. b) Nicholas of Cusa; 1) Revival; c) Kant; 3) New time; d) Plato; 2) Antiquity;
2. Match the philosopher and the era:
a) Aristotle 2) Antiquity; b) Locke; 1) New time; c) Voltaire; 4) Enlightenment. d) Thomas Aquinas; 3) Middle Ages;
3. Match the philosopher and the era:
a) Hobbes 4) New time. b) Cicero; 1) Antiquity; c) Rousseau; 3) Enlightenment; d) J. Bruno; 2) Revival;
4. Set the correspondence between the philosopher and the philosophical direction:
a) Sartre 3) existentialism; b) Thales; 2) Milesian school; c) Hegel; 1) German classical philosophy; d) Augustine the Blessed; 4) patristics.
5. Set the correspondence between the philosopher and the philosophical direction:
a) Thomas Aquinas 2) scholasticism; b) Democritus; 1) the school of atomists; c) Marx; 4) dialectical materialism. d) Nicholas of Cusa; 3) natural philosophy;
6. Set the correspondence between the philosopher and the philosophical direction:
a) Diderot 2) encyclopedism; b) Protagoras; 1) sophistry; c) Thomas More; 3) utopianism; d) Kant; 4) German classical philosophy.
7. Set the correspondence of the philosophical direction to the historical era:
a) German classical philosophy; 4) New time. b) hermeneutics; 3) Modernity; c) patristics; 2) Middle Ages; d) sophistry; 1) Antiquity;
8. Set the correspondence of the philosophical direction to the historical era:
a) encyclopedia; 4) Enlightenment. b) atomism; 1) Antiquity; c) Freudianism; 3) Modernity; d) scholasticism; 2) Middle Ages;
9. Set the correspondence of philosophical schools to philosophical culture:
a) the philosophy of modern times; 3) Cartesianism; b) modern Western philosophy; 1) pragmatism; c) the philosophy of antiquity; 4) skepticism. d) German classical philosophy; 2) transcendental idealism;
10. Match the philosophical category and its author:
a) utopia; 2) Thomas More; b) logos; 1) Heraclitus; c) morality; 4) Cicero. d) socio-economic formation; 3) Marx;
11. Correlate the concepts and philosophers who use them:
a) life; 3) Parmenides; b) form; 1) Aristotle; c) an idea; 4) Plato. d) atom; 2) Democritus;
12. Match the philosophers and the key categories of their concepts:
a) Epicurus 4) pleasure. b) Nietzsche; 2) will to power; c) Bergson; 1) life impulse; d) Comte; 3) positive philosophy;
To receive a job or if you have any questions regarding this job, click on the button Order a job and fill in all fields of the form. We kindly ask you to carefully fill in and indicate all the data (university, country, email and phone), your wishes and requirements for work. When writing this work (According to most historians of philosophy, F. Bacon was the ancestor) only fresh literature is used. The scientific approach and professionalism of the employees of our company allow us to carry out high-quality work. According to most historians of philosophy, F. Bacon was the ancestor, as a result of which the received works are defended as "excellent".
If you are not satisfied with the content or structure of the work itself: According to most historians of philosophy, F. Bacon was the ancestor of the subject (Philosophy), please contact us, the work is changed and issued under the university completely free of charge. Our experts will advise you on any issue related to this work by phone or e-mail.
Control - According to most historians of philosophy, F. Bacon was the ancestor issued in accordance with GOST and ready for printing and delivery to the department.
A contemporary of many Italian humanists, Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) is one of the most profound philosophers of the Renaissance. He was a native of southern Germany (the town of Cuza), of a completely humble origin. Nicholas already in his school years was influenced by the mystics ("brothers of common life"). At the University of Padua, in addition to the usual humanitarian education, which consisted in improving the Latin language and studying Greek, Nikolai was fond of mathematics and astronomy. In the future, he had to choose a spiritual career. The young priest, who made connections with the Italian humanists, was captured by their movement. Perhaps, like no other philosopher of this era, Nicholas combined in his works and in his activities the culture of the Middle Ages and the vigorously advancing culture of humanism. On the one hand, he is a very active hierarch catholic church, who in 1448 was elevated to the rank of cardinal by the humanist pope Nicholas V, on the other hand, he was an active member of the circle of humanists that formed around this pope. For the atmosphere that prevailed here, the good relations of the philosopher-cardinal with such a disturber of church peace as Lorenzo Valla are indicative. The Kuzanets acquired the greatest influence when Piccolomini, a friend of his youth, became Pope Pius II, and he himself actually became the second person in the Roman church hierarchy. Confessional and administrative chores were combined with Nicholas with a productive literary activity . He wrote a number of philosophical works in Latin - in the genre of a treatise, reflection, dialogue. He also has his own scientific works. Unlike the overwhelming majority of contemporary Italian humanist philosophers, Kuzanets was deeply interested in questions of mathematics and natural science, and his philosophical doctrine is incomprehensible outside of these interests. A prominent minister of the church, of course, wrote purely theological works (in particular, sermons). The philosophical content of Nicholas's works is often very difficult to separate from the theological. In this respect, he continued the medieval tradition with its mixture of theology and philosophy. The most significant and famous of Cusan's works is the treatise "On learned ignorance" ("De docta ignorantia" - can be translated as "On wise ignorance", "On knowing ignorance", 1440). It is adjoined by another treatise - "On Assumptions" (no later than 1444). In 1450, Nikolai wrote four dialogues under the general title "Simple". The first two of them are called "On Wisdom", the third - "On the Mind", the fourth - "On the Experience with Scales". The name of these dialogues, as well as their content, attracts attention with its humanistic-democratic idea of turning for true wisdom not to a representative of the guild of official scholarship, but to a person from the people who are not confused by this pseudo-scholarship. As a thinker of the transitional era - the Middle Ages, transforming into the Renaissance - Nicholas of Cusa demonstrates in his works various, often very contradictory sides and facets of this era. As a mystic and contemplative, which he may have become already in his youth, he is an enemy of scholasticism, especially Thomistic, which led human thought into the blind alleys of the knowledge of God. It was on the path of mysticism that Nicholas strove for effective worship of God. This is evidenced by the very titles of his works - “On the Hidden God”, “On the Search for God”, “On the Sonship of God”, “On the Gift of the Father of Lights” (all of them were created in 1445-1447), “On the Vision of God” (1453 ), which are purely speculative. It is believed that after the appearance of “On learned ignorance” and “On assumptions”, especially after 1450, when the dialogues of “The Simple Man” were written, the mystical moods of the philosopher-cardinal intensified, which was reflected in his works interpreting the concept of God in abstract philosophical plan - "On the Possibility of Being" (1460), "On the Non-Other" (1462), as well as in works where the author's thoughts are clothed in an allegorical and symbolic form - "On Beryl" ("Spiritual Glasses", 1458 ), "On the hunt for wisdom" (1463), "On the ball game" (1463), "On the pinnacle of contemplation" (1464). Kuzanets was also an enemy of scholasticism as a representative of humanistic education, who paid great attention to natural science issues. Hence the powerful intrusion of naturalistic considerations and ideas into the speculative-mystical constructions of Cusan. In various books on the history of philosophy, Nicholas of Cusa is usually characterized as a Platonist. Indeed, he has many references to Plato. But Cusan's Platonism should be understood in a broader sense, including Neoplatonism, which had a great influence on him even before the Florentine Platonists. Proclus is one of his main philosophical authorities. As you know, the Areopagitics also experienced a huge impact of Neoplatonism (especially the same Proclus). However, one should not consider Cusanets only as a Platonist. For example, he highly valued the ideas of Pythagoreanism, before which the ideas of Platonism sometimes even receded into the background. In a different context, Nicholas uses the ideas of other ancient philosophers and theologians - Augustine, Boethius, Socrates, Anaxagoras, the Stoics, the atomists. Cusan's concept of God should be interpreted as pantheistic, despite the fact that in the historical and philosophical literature there are frequent statements regarding the theistic nature of this concept. Theism is at the core of all monotheistic religion and insists not only on the personal-transcendental understanding of God and his free-willed creativity, but also on the omnipresence of this omnipotent principle. Pantheism undermines the personal-transcendent interpretation of God and insists on his impersonality and omnipresence. There is no rigid, impassable boundary between theism and pantheism. It should also be borne in mind that theism and pantheism (as well as deism) have in common the idea of a special, completely spiritual being-God, primary in relation to man, who cannot exist without such being. Nicholas of Cusa understood that the most infinite and ultimately unified God is not only and not so much an object of one or another positive religion - Christian, Muslim or Jewish, as a concept, interreligious, inherent in the faith of any people [see: "Scientific ignorance"], and various names of God, especially pagan ones, were determined not so much by the signs of the creator as by the signs of his creations [see: Ibid. I, 25, 83]. main topic On the ontological problematics developed by Cusan, this is, on the one hand, the question of the relationship between the countless number of specific individual things and phenomena of the natural and human world and the divine absolute, and on the other hand, the question of God as the ultimate spiritual being, opposed to the world of finite bodily things, for if God is removed from creation, then it will turn into non-existence and nothingness. [see: ibid II, 3, 110]. But this traditional dualistic creationist idea is constantly interrupted in Nikolai by the idea of the unity of the infinite God and the world of finite things. "The existence of God in the world is nothing else than the existence of the world in God" [On Assumptions, II, 7, 107]. The second part of this statement testifies to mystical pantheism (sometimes called panentheism), and the first to naturalistic pantheism. By virtue of the first of them, things and phenomena are only symbols of God, and by virtue of the second they are quite stable and are of interest in themselves. Moreover, often the same formulations can be regarded both in the first and in the second aspects, for example, the interpretation of the world as a "sensual God." For Kuzanets, as a Renaissance philosopher, who anticipated the birth of mathematical natural science, it became especially important to emphasize the presence in the world of ratios of measure, number and weight. Considering that the divine art at the creation of the world consisted mainly in geometry, arithmetic and music, declaring that "the first image of things in the mind of the creator is a number" ["On Assumptions", II, 2, 9], without which nothing can be understood , nor create, Nicholas from a Platonist, as it were, becomes a Pythagorean, striving to replace ideas with numbers, attributing such a view to Augustine and Boethius. Mathematics, according to Kuzanz, is applicable even in matters of theology, in positive theology, for example, when likening the "blessed Trinity" to a triangle that has three right angles and is therefore infinite. Similarly, God himself can be compared to an endless circle. But the Pythagoreanism of Nicholas was expressed not only and not even so much in the mathematization of theological speculations. Claiming the great help of mathematics in understanding "various divine truths" ["Scientific ignorance", I, 11, 30], he not only anticipated mathematical natural science, but also took a certain step in this direction in his essay "On Experience with Balances". The mathematical interpretation of existence was also reflected in the cosmology of Cusan. In the light of what has been said above, it is understandable why the intellectualization of God's creative activity is connected in Cusan with a very fruitful problem of the relationship between nature and art. On the one hand, "art appears as a kind of imitation of nature" [On Assumptions, II, 12, 121]. But on the other hand, nature itself is considered as the result of the art of a divine master, who creates everything with the help of arithmetic, geometry and music. Kuzanets defended the objective-idealistic idea of "development", which went back to the same Neoplatonism - from the abstract-simple to the concrete-complex, which were interpreted not as a reflection of some processes, but as an absolute reality. At the same time, the mystical side of Cusan's pantheism was also manifested. Since God is not only at the beginning, but also at the end of everything that exists, the return to him of the infinitely complex diversity of the world is, as it were, its "folding" (complicatio). However, for all the idealism and even mysticism of Nikolai's vision of the world, it differs quite sharply from the scholastic-creationist one in its dynamism, reminiscent of ancient natural-philosophical constructions. The idea of a universal connection in nature was supplemented - albeit a very modest one - by the idea of real development, at least in organic nature. Thus, intellectual life is hidden in the darkness of plant life [see: On Assumptions, II, 10, 123]. the vegetative force in the plant world, the sensing force in the animal world, and the intellectual force in the human world are connected by virtue of a single substantial ability [see: "On the ball game", 38-41]. Hence man is an organic element in the doctrine of Nicholas of Cuza. At the same time, the initial idea is man as a microcosm, which in its essence reproduces ("contracts") the huge world of nature surrounding him. The Kuzanets emphasized its "three-syllable" composition: "the small world" is the man himself; "big world" - universe; "maximum world" - God, divine absolute "Small - likeness (similitude) of the big, big - likeness of the maximum" ["On the ball game", 42]. To understand the problem of man, it is important not so much that he is a semblance of the universe, for it was established already in antiquity, stated by some humanists and underlay the Renaissance naturalistic interpretations of man. For understanding spiritual man much more important to understand his attitude to the "maximum world", to God. Man as the "second God" ["On Beryl", 6, 7] is most of all likened to him by his mental activity and the corresponding creation of artificial forms. The human mind is a complex system of abilities. The main ones are three: feeling (sensus), reason (ratio) and reason (intellectusk) The author of “Scientific Ignorance” also uses the triadic formula regarding God to comprehend these basic cognitive abilities, [because he sees in reason an intermediary between feeling and reason. The problem of universals Kuzanets decided in the spirit of moderate realism, according to which [the general exists objectively, although only in the things themselves. In terms of epistemology, genera and species are considered conceptualistically (i.e., moderately nominalistically) as expressed in words, for "the names are given as a result of the movement of the mind" and turn out to be the result of his analyzing and generalizing activity. Without such activity, scientific knowledge is impossible, especially mathematical, the most reliable, because the number arises as a "deployment of the mind." Nicholas's rationalism is manifested not only in the exaltation of mathematics, but also in the corresponding assessment of logic, because " logic is nothing but an art in which the power of reason is deployed. Therefore, those who are naturally strong with reason flourish in this art" [“On Assumptions”, II, 2, 84]. If in sensations, as then in reason, the dependence of the human microcosm on the macrocosm surrounding it is manifested, then absolute independence and the maximum activity of the mind as the intellectual focus of the microcosm is sometimes extended by Kuzan to the entire area of the mind, which is an image of the divine mind with its ability to universally fold and unfold the being with all its attributes and properties [see ibid., IV, 74]. reason, "comprehends only the universal, imperishable and permanent" ["Scientific ignorance", III, 12, 259), thereby approaching the sphere of the infinite, absolute, divine. But the Kuzanets puts faith above knowledge, and not so much in its theological fideistic, as much as in the philosophical-epistemological sense. The author of Scientific Ignorance" agrees with all those teachers who "assert that all understanding begins with faith." At the same time, there can be no question of blind faith, devoid of any understanding (what a purely fideistic theological faith is). "Reason is guided by faith, and faith is revealed by reason." Dialectically is the teaching of Cusan on being, deep dialectics is also contained in his teaching on knowledge. The most important expression of such dynamism was his doctrine of opposites, emphasizing with the greatest force the relativity of the constants of being. Being is permeated with a variety of opposites, the specific combination of which imparts certainty to certain things [see: "Scientific ignorance", II, 1, 95]. The living opposite is man himself, finite as a bodily being and infinite in the higher aspirations of his spirit to comprehend the divine absolute. But the most important ontological opposition is the divine being itself. As being everywhere, it is "everything", and as not being found anywhere, it is "nothing of everything" ["Scientific ignorance", I, 16, 43]. The Kuzanets repeatedly emphasizes that the ultimate simplicity, "coagulation" of the absolute puts it beyond all oppositions and contradictions, which, being overcome, sink in it, like drops in the ocean. With the activity of this highest theoretical ability, which likens a person to God, his famous doctrine of the coincidence of opposites (coincidentia oppositorum) is connected. Well-known mathematical examples are given in "Scientific Ignorance" and other works. So, as the height of an isosceles triangle increases infinitely, and, consequently, the angle opposite the base decreases infinitely as this increase increases, the triangle will coincide with a straight line. Similarly, as its radius increases, the circle will more and more coincide with the tangent to it. At infinity, straightness and curvature are generally indistinguishable, no matter how geometric figure we didn’t take it. [The teaching of Kuzanets about the coincidence of opposites develops into a deep dialectic of truth. Its essence lies in the position according to which truth - of course, at the human level - is inseparable from its opposite, from error. For truth, delusion is what shadow is for light. After all, even upper world abounds in light, but is not devoid of darkness", although it seems that the simplicity of light completely excludes it. "In the lower world, on the contrary, darkness reigns, although it is not completely without light" ["On Assumptions", I, 9, 42].
Watch value Philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa in other dictionaries
Philosophy- and. Greek wisdom, the science of the attainment of wisdom by a person, of the knowledge of truth and goodness. Philosophical essay. Faculty of Philosophy. - stone, among the alchemists: the imaginary art of making gold.
Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary
Philosophy- philosophy, pl. no, w. (Greek philosophy). 1. The science of the universal laws of motion and development of nature, human society and thinking. The highest question of all philosophy, says Engels,
Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov
Political Philosophy- (POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY) - an area of intellectual research, where they deal with ideas related to politics, especially political values, to the essence of political reality ........
Political vocabulary
Philosophy Politics- (Greek philosophia from phileo and sophia - wisdom) - a philosophical, theoretical and methodological way of studying politics. Philosophical approach to the analysis of political problems is ........
Political vocabulary
Philosophy Political- - one of the sciences of politics that studies the relationship between the individual, society and state power, revealing the meaning of political phenomena and developing ideals ........
Political vocabulary
Investment Philosophy— The direction of investment chosen by a private investor or manager in money management. For example, some investors adhere to a "growth philosophy"........
Economic dictionary
Mission (Business Credo, Philosophy) of a Specific Business — -
a set of general guidelines and principles that determine the purpose and role of this
business and its constituent enterprises in society, relationships ........
Economic dictionary
Mission (Business Credo, Philosophy) — -
a set of general attitudes and principles that determine the purpose and role of the enterprise in society, relationships with other socio-economic entities.
Economic dictionary
Philosophy of Law- - the science of the most general theoretical and philosophical problems of jurisprudence and state studies. For a long time acted as a component
some philosophical...
Economic dictionary
Philosophy- -And; and. [from Greek. phileō - love and sophia - wisdom]
1. The science of the most general laws of the development of nature, human society and thinking. Antique f. // someone. The doctrine of the most ........
Explanatory Dictionary of Kuznetsov
Philosophy- The name of the science of the world order is formed according to the same principle as; in the second part of this word - a Greek noun with the meaning "wisdom" (a female name ........
Etymological Dictionary of Krylov
Philosophy- - a discipline that includes a system of knowledge about the development of world philosophical thought, the fundamental problems of human existence, society and cognition, contributing to ........
Law Dictionary
Philosophy of Law- - the science of the most general theoretical and philosophical problems of jurisprudence and state studies. For a long time it acted as an integral part of philosophical systems.........
Law Dictionary
Analytical Philosophy- the direction of Western, mainly Anglo-American, philosophy of the 20th century; reduces philosophy to the analysis of predominantly linguistic means of cognition; a kind of neopositivism. Main ........
Common Sense Philosophy- idealistic school in Scottish philosophy 18 - early. 19th centuries See Scottish School.
Big encyclopedic dictionary
Immanent Philosophy- current in German philosophy con. 19 - beg. 20th century, who asserted that the cognizable reality is in the sphere of consciousness, i.e. e. immanent to him. considered the only reality ........
Big encyclopedic dictionary
Linguistic Philosophy- (philosophy of linguistic analysis - philosophy of ordinary language), the direction of analytical philosophy. In the spirit of neopositivism considers traditional philosophical problems........
Big encyclopedic dictionary
Philosophy- (from phil ... and Greek sophia - wisdom) - a form of social consciousness, worldview, a system of ideas, views on the world and on a person's place in it; explores the cognitive, socio-political, ........
Big encyclopedic dictionary
Philosophy of life- Philosophical current 19 - beg. 20 centuries, emanating from the concept of "life" as a kind of intuitively comprehended organic integrity and creative dynamics of being. In different........
Big encyclopedic dictionary
Philosophy History- a branch of philosophy dealing with the problems of the meaning of history, its laws, the main direction of human development and historical knowledge. Representatives........
Big encyclopedic dictionary
Land of Emperor Nicholas II- see Severnaya Zemlya
Geographic dictionary
Emperor Nicholas I Bay- see Sovetskaya Gavan
Geographic dictionary
Alexandra Feodorovna (wife of Nicholas I)- Alexandra Feodorovna, Empress of All Russia, wife of Emperor Nicholas I, daughter of Frederick-Louise-Charlotte-Wilhelmine, King of Prussia, Frederick-Louise-Charlotte-Wilhelmine, ........
Historical dictionary
Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Nicholas II- - Russian Empress, nee Princess of Hesse (1872-1918), wife of Nicholas II since November 1894. In the history of the fall of the Romanov dynasty, she played approximately the same role, ........
Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Nicholas I- - Empress of All Russia, wife of Emperor Nicholas I, daughter of the King of Prussia Frederick-Wilhelm III, Frederick-Louise-Charlotte-Wilhelmina, born July 1, 1798, entered ........
Big biographical encyclopedia
Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Nicholas II- - Empress of All Russia, wife of the reigning Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich, daughter of the Grand Duke of Hesse Ludwig IV from marriage with Princess Alice of Great Britain .........
Big biographical encyclopedia
Greek Culture VII-IV Centuries. BC. Philosophy & Science— The development of trade and all-Greek relations led to the emergence of writing, which was an important stage in the development of Greek culture. Mycenaean Linear throughout........
Historical dictionary
Italian Philosophy of the 16th and First Half of the 17th Century.— Antique heritage
By the beginning of the XVI century. the new secular philosophy already had its own tradition associated with the names of Lorenzo Valla, Picodella Mirandola, Marsilio Ficino. She developed...
Historical dictionary
Culture of the Early Roman Empire. Literature, Philosophy And Science- The central idea that united all other elements of the official ideology in the period of the empire was the idea of the greatness and eternity of Rome and its providential mission, merged ........
Historical dictionary
Literature And Philosophy Of China In III-viii Centuries.- The time of the Thai Empire has long and firmly established the reputation of the golden age of Chinese medieval poetry. Indeed, in the eighth century lived three greatest poet Chinese........
Historical dictionary
A contemporary of many Italian humanists, Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) is one of the most profound philosophers of the Renaissance. He was a native of southern Germany (the town of Cuza), of a completely humble origin. Nicholas already in his school years was influenced by the mystics ("brothers of common life"). At the University of Padua, in addition to the usual humanitarian education, which consisted in improving the Latin language and studying Greek, Nikolai was fond of mathematics and astronomy. In the future, he had to choose a spiritual career. The young priest, who made connections with the Italian humanists, was captured by their movement.
Perhaps, like no other philosopher of this era, Nicholas combined in his works and in his activities the culture of the Middle Ages and the vigorously advancing culture of humanism. On the one hand, he is a very active hierarch of the Catholic Church, whom in 1448 the humanist Pope Nicholas V elevated to the rank of cardinal, on the other hand, he is an active member of the circle of humanists that formed around this pope. For the atmosphere that prevailed here, the good relations of the philosopher-cardinal with such a disturber of church peace as Lorenzo Valla are indicative. The Cuzanets acquired the greatest influence when Piccolomini, a friend of his youth, became Pope Pius II, and he himself actually became the second person in the Roman church hierarchy. Confessional and administrative chores were combined with Nikolai's productive literary activity. He wrote a number of philosophical works in Latin - in the genre of a treatise, reflection, dialogue. He also has his own scientific works. Unlike the overwhelming majority of contemporary Italian humanist philosophers, Kuzanets was deeply interested in questions of mathematics and natural science, and his philosophical doctrine is incomprehensible outside of these interests. A prominent minister of the church, of course, wrote purely theological works (in particular, sermons). The philosophical content of Nicholas's works is often very difficult to separate from the theological. In this respect, he continued the medieval tradition with its mixture of theology and philosophy.
The most significant and famous of Cusan's works is the treatise "On learned ignorance" ("De docta ignorantia" - can be translated as "On wise ignorance", "On knowing ignorance", 1440). It is adjoined by another treatise - "On Assumptions" (no later than 1444). In 1450, Nikolai wrote four dialogues under the general title "Simple". The first two of them are called "On Wisdom", the third - "On the Mind", the fourth - "On the Experience with Scales". The name of these dialogues, as well as their content, attracts attention with its humanistic-democratic idea of turning for true wisdom not to a representative of the guild of official scholarship, but to a person from the people who are not confused by this pseudo-scholarship.
As a thinker of the transitional era - the Middle Ages, transforming into the Renaissance - Nicholas of Cusa demonstrates in his works various, often very contradictory sides and facets of this era. As a mystic and contemplative, which he may have become already in his youth, he is an enemy of scholasticism, especially Thomistic, which led human thought into the blind alleys of the knowledge of God. It was on the path of mysticism that Nicholas strove for effective worship of God. This is evidenced by the very titles of his works - “On the Hidden God”, “On the Search for God”, “On the Sonship of God”, “On the Gift of the Father of Lights” (all of them were created in 1445-1447), “On the Vision of God” (1453 ), which are purely speculative. It is believed that after the appearance of “On learned ignorance” and “On assumptions”, especially after 1450, when the dialogues of “The Simple Man” were written, the mystical moods of the philosopher-cardinal intensified, which was reflected in his works interpreting the concept of God in abstract philosophical plan - "On the Possibility of Being" (1460), "On the Non-Other" (1462), as well as in works where the author's thoughts are clothed in an allegorical and symbolic form - "On Beryl" ("Spiritual Glasses", 1458 ), "On the hunt for wisdom" (1463), "On the ball game" (1463), "On the pinnacle of contemplation" (1464).
Kuzanets was also an enemy of scholasticism as a representative of humanistic education, who paid great attention to natural science issues. Hence the powerful intrusion of naturalistic considerations and ideas into the speculative-mystical constructions of Cusan. In various books on the history of philosophy, Nicholas of Cusa is usually characterized as a Platonist. Indeed, he has many references to Plato. But Cusan's Platonism should be understood in a broader sense, including Neoplatonism, which had a great influence on him even before the Florentine Platonists. Proclus is one of his main philosophical authorities. As you know, the Areopagitics also experienced a huge impact of Neoplatonism (especially the same Proclus). However, one should not consider Cusanets only as a Platonist. For example, he highly valued the ideas of Pythagoreanism, before which the ideas of Platonism sometimes even receded into the background. In a different context, Nicholas uses the ideas of other ancient philosophers and theologians - Augustine, Boethius, Socrates, Anaxagoras, the Stoics, the atomists.
Cusan's concept of God should be interpreted as pantheistic, despite the fact that in the historical and philosophical literature there are frequent statements regarding the theistic nature of this concept. Theism underlies any monotheistic religion and insists not only on a personal-transcendent understanding of God and his free-will creativity, but also on the omnipresence of this omnipotent principle. Pantheism undermines the personal-transcendent interpretation of God and insists on his impersonality and omnipresence. There is no rigid, impassable boundary between theism and pantheism. It should also be borne in mind that theism and pantheism (as well as deism) have in common the idea of a special, completely spiritual being-God, primary in relation to man, who cannot exist without such being.
Nicholas of Cusa understood that the most infinite and ultimately unified God is not only and not so much an object of one or another positive religion - Christian, Muslim or Jewish, as a concept, interreligious, inherent in the faith of any people [see: "Scientific ignorance"], and various names of God, especially pagan ones, were determined not so much by the signs of the creator as by the signs of his creations [see: Ibid. I, 25, 83].
The main theme of the ontological problematics developed by Kuzanz is, on the one hand, the question of the relationship between countless specific individual things and phenomena of the natural and human world and the divine absolute, and, on the other hand, the question of God as the ultimate spiritual being, opposed to the world of finite bodily things, for if God is removed from creation, then it will turn into non-existence and nothingness. [see: ibid II, 3, 110]. But this traditional dualistic creationist idea is constantly interrupted in Nikolai by the idea of the unity of the infinite God and the world of finite things. "The existence of God in the world is nothing else than the existence of the world in God" [On Assumptions, II, 7, 107]. The second part of this statement testifies to mystical pantheism (sometimes called panentheism), and the first to naturalistic pantheism. By virtue of the first of them, things and phenomena are only symbols of God, and by virtue of the second they are quite stable and are of interest in themselves. Moreover, often the same formulations can be regarded both in the first and in the second aspects, for example, the interpretation of the world as a "sensual God." For Kuzanets, as a Renaissance philosopher, who anticipated the birth of mathematical natural science, it became especially important to emphasize the presence in the world of ratios of measure, number and weight. Considering that the divine art at the creation of the world consisted mainly in geometry, arithmetic and music, declaring that "the first image of things in the mind of the creator is a number" ["On Assumptions", II, 2, 9], without which nothing can be understood , nor create, Nicholas from a Platonist, as it were, becomes a Pythagorean, striving to replace ideas with numbers, attributing such a view to Augustine and Boethius.
Mathematics, according to Kuzanz, is applicable even in matters of theology, in positive theology, for example, when likening the "blessed Trinity" to a triangle that has three right angles and is therefore infinite. Similarly, God himself can be compared to an endless circle. But the Pythagoreanism of Nicholas was expressed not only and not even so much in the mathematization of theological speculations. Claiming the great help of mathematics in understanding "various divine truths" ["Scientific ignorance", I, 11, 30], he not only anticipated mathematical natural science, but also took a certain step in this direction in his essay "On Experience with Balances". The mathematical interpretation of existence was also reflected in the cosmology of Cusan.
In the light of what has been said above, it is understandable why the intellectualization of God's creative activity is connected in Cusan with a very fruitful problem of the relationship between nature and art. On the one hand, "art appears as a kind of imitation of nature" [On Assumptions, II, 12, 121]. But on the other hand, nature itself is considered as the result of the art of a divine master, who creates everything with the help of arithmetic, geometry and music.
Kuzanets defended the objective-idealistic idea of "development", which went back to the same Neoplatonism - from the abstract-simple to the concrete-complex, which were interpreted not as a reflection of some processes, but as an absolute reality. At the same time, the mystical side of Cusan's pantheism was also manifested. Since God is not only at the beginning, but also at the end of everything that exists, the return to him of the infinitely complex diversity of the world is, as it were, its "folding" (complicatio). However, for all the idealism and even mysticism of Nikolai's vision of the world, it differs quite sharply from the scholastic-creationist one in its dynamism, reminiscent of ancient natural-philosophical constructions. The idea of a universal connection in nature was supplemented - albeit a very modest one - by the idea of real development, at least in organic nature. Thus, intellectual life is hidden in the darkness of plant life [see: On Assumptions, II, 10, 123]. the vegetative force in the plant world, the sensing force in the animal world, and the intellectual force in the human world are connected by virtue of a single substantial ability [see: "On the ball game", 38-41]. Hence man is an organic element in the doctrine of Nicholas of Cuza.
At the same time, the initial idea is man as a microcosm, which in its essence reproduces ("contracts") the huge world of nature surrounding him. The Kuzanets emphasized its "three-syllable" composition: "the small world" is the man himself; "big world" - universe; "maximum world" - God, divine absolute "Small - likeness (similitude) of the big, big - likeness of the maximum" ["On the ball game", 42]. To understand the problem of man, it is important not so much that he is a semblance of the universe, for it was established already in antiquity, stated by some humanists and underlay the Renaissance naturalistic interpretations of man. To understand the spiritual man, it is much more important to understand his attitude to the "maximum world", to God. Man as the "second God" ["On Beryl", 6, 7] is most of all likened to him by his mental activity and the corresponding creation of artificial forms. The human mind is a complex system of abilities. The main of them are three: feeling (sensus), reason (ratio) and reason (intellectusk) The author of “Scientific Ignorance” also uses the triadic formula regarding God to comprehend these basic cognitive abilities, [because he sees in reason an intermediary between feeling and reason.
The problem of universals Kuzanets solved in the spirit of moderate realism, according to which [the general exists objectively, although only in the things themselves. On the epistemological plane, genera and species are considered conceptualistically (i.e., moderately nominalistically) as expressed in words, because "the names are given as a result of the movement of the mind" and turn out to be the result of its analyzing and generalizing activity. Without such activity, scientific knowledge is impossible, primarily mathematical, the most reliable, because the number arises as a "deployment of reason." The rationalism of Nicholas is manifested not only in the exaltation of mathematics, but also in the corresponding assessment of logic, for “logic is nothing but an art in which the power of reason is deployed. Therefore, those who are naturally strong with reason flourish in this art” [“Oh assumptions”, II, 2, 84]. If in sensations, as then in reason, the dependence of the human microcosm on the surrounding macrocosm is manifested, then the absolute independence and maximum activity of the mind as the intellectual focus of the microcosm is sometimes extended by Cusan to the entire area of the mind, which is an image of the divine mind with its ability of universal folding and unfolding. being with all its attributes and properties [cf. ibid., IV, 74]. Unlike feeling and reason, the mind "comprehends only the universal, imperishable and permanent" ["Scientific ignorance", III, 12, 259), thereby approaching the sphere of the infinite, absolute, divine.
But the Kuzanets puts faith above knowledge, and not so much in its theological-fideistic sense, but in its philosophical-epistemological sense. The Author of Scientific Ignorance agrees with all those teachers who "assert that all understanding begins with faith." At the same time, there can be no question of blind faith, devoid of any understanding (what a purely fideistic theological faith is). "Reason is guided by faith, and faith is revealed by reason."
Dialectically is the teaching of Cusan on being, deep dialectics is also contained in his teaching on knowledge. The most important expression of such dynamism was his doctrine of opposites, emphasizing with the greatest force the relativity of the constants of being. Being is permeated with a variety of opposites, the specific combination of which imparts certainty to certain things [see: "Scientific ignorance", II, 1, 95]. The living opposite is man himself, finite as a bodily being and infinite in the higher aspirations of his spirit to comprehend the divine absolute. But the most important ontological opposition is the divine being itself. As being everywhere, it is "everything", and as not being found anywhere, it is "nothing of everything" ["Scientific ignorance", I, 16, 43]. The Kuzanets repeatedly emphasizes that the ultimate simplicity, "coagulation" of the absolute puts it beyond all oppositions and contradictions, which, being overcome, sink in it, like drops in the ocean.
With the activity of this highest theoretical ability, which likens a person to God, his famous doctrine of the coincidence of opposites (coincidentia oppositorum) is connected. Well-known mathematical examples are given in "Scientific Ignorance" and other works. So, as the height of an isosceles triangle increases infinitely, and, consequently, the angle opposite the base decreases infinitely as this increase increases, the triangle will coincide with a straight line. Similarly, as its radius increases, the circle will more and more coincide with the tangent to it. In infinity, straightness and curvature are generally indistinguishable, no matter what geometric figure we take. Its essence lies in the position according to which truth - of course, at the human level - is inseparable from its opposite, from error. For truth, delusion is what shadow is for light. After all, even "the upper world abounds in light, but is not devoid of darkness," although it seems that the simplicity of light completely excludes it. "In the lower world, on the contrary, darkness reigns, although it is not completely without light" ["On Assumptions", I, 9, 42].