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Karsten Harries on Nicholas of Cusa, Modernity, and Nihilism
61 Plays14 days ago
Karsten Harries, emeritus Yale professor of philosophy, joins Dr. Sam Bennett for a conversation on Nicholas of Cusa’s On Learned Ignorance, the limits of reason, modern science, nihilism, Kant, Heidegger, beauty, and transcendence in human life.
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Transcript
Introduction to Dynasties Circle Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome back to the Dynasties Circle Podcast. I'm Dr. Sam Bennett and today i share a conversation with philosopher Karsten Harries about his recent commentary on a work by Nicholas of Cusa called Unlearned Ignorance, which I believe was published in the year 1440. began by asking Karsten about what spurred him to write the commentary. I hope you enjoy.
Karsten Harries on Nicholas of Cusa
00:00:25
Speaker
Well, first of all, I've been interested in Nicholas of Kuse ever since my teens, really, and to worked on him off and on. I think the second paper I published was on Nicholas of Kuse.
00:00:42
Speaker
And I ah kept teaching him ah in graduate seminars for many years, especially learned ignorance.
00:00:54
Speaker
ah When I wrote Infinity and Perspective, the hero of that book is really Nicholas of Cusa. But as I went over that book, I felt I didn't do justice to the richness of his thought.
00:01:11
Speaker
And I felt I should really write a commentary on the book, which would... go into every detail. So in part, it was i went almost as if I had to pay off a debt listen to a thinker whom I consider very highly.
Blending Commentary and Philosophy
00:01:32
Speaker
Yeah, on on the one hand, your commentary is a very detailed exposition of the text itself. But on the other hand, um it also includes sort of your own perspective, your own philosophical thinking and your own sort of interest in Cusa. It's a very nice balance between textual exposition and also a sort of living appropriation of the text where we kind of see how Cusa might be relevant
00:02:11
Speaker
and maybe even essential to our own philosophical moment? Well, I do think that Kusa retains his relevance today.
00:02:26
Speaker
And I would say I don't think any other philosopher ah is closer to what I consider central than Nicholas of Cousa. So ah when I write about him, yes, I write also about my own philosophy.
00:02:45
Speaker
And in many ways, I find that he gives more adequate expression to it than any other philosopher I know. The one who would come close is this cunt.
00:02:57
Speaker
Yeah, and and hopefully we can talk a little bit about that. um How
00:03:03
Speaker
in in some ways what intrigues you, and what you seem to value in Cusa seems to also be found in Kant. So maybe we'll we'll be able to touch
Limits of Human Reason and Knowledge
00:03:15
Speaker
on that. but you know one you know One of the things that you've considered central in your work, it seems to be an an engagement with modern philosophy in a sort of, you have a kind of critical um approach to modern philosophy in some ways.
00:03:35
Speaker
um Well, in a way right it is tied to ah claim that our reason can do full justice to reality.
00:03:51
Speaker
And I'm convinced, as was Nicholas of Cruiser, that it cannot. So it is, ah
00:04:01
Speaker
there's a tension between what we can know and what they're finally, and reality here. And I've worked this out in other works too. I've spoken of the antinomy of being,
00:04:16
Speaker
so that being will always prove in the end elusive. We'll never fully understand being. And yet it doesn't mean skepticism because we can know an awful lot about nature and so on.
00:04:31
Speaker
And that has to be recognized if we are going to do justice to the world in which we live.
Modern Philosophy vs. Heidegger
00:04:36
Speaker
So you have to recognize on one hand the achievements of our science and technology,
00:04:44
Speaker
And on the other hand, recognize that there are limits and try to work this out. And there, I think, Kusa is a guide. Yeah.
00:04:55
Speaker
Yeah. it It seems like your perspective on modern philosophy is that... um Yeah, on the one hand, you're trying to do it justice. And in that respect, maybe in a way you, although you in certain respects, your philosophy resembles Martin Heidegger, you know, in terms of um taking a critical stance toward modern philosophy to some degree, as well as um a concern with the technological society in which we live, as well as a concern with nihilism.
00:05:29
Speaker
those things you share with mark with Heidegger, but on the other hand, it seems you're trying to do a bit more justice. yeah Well, I would say what I find inadequate about Heidegger, you're right that there's a great deal where I agree with him and I've learned from him, but I think his understanding of technology is finally inadequate or of science and technology.
00:05:55
Speaker
ah He cannot do justice to ah the progress that, indubitably, science has made. And the that progress has two sides. It threatens even our humanity.
00:06:13
Speaker
But we cannot deny that we know an awful lot more about nature. So there cannot be a total incommensurability. There has to be also a commensurability between the way things are and what we can know.
00:06:28
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Right. but But on the other hand, yeah, like just to emphasize for the listeners, you would see, as I understand you,
00:06:39
Speaker
you would see a fundamental error in thinking that being is fully commensurable yes with
Infinite vs. Finite in Philosophy
00:06:46
Speaker
reason. That reason is capable of exhausting being in terms of yeah being entirely knowable. And and in some ways, you know Descartes, for example, might, for you, represent a kind of crystallized, this ideal of epistemic sovereignty and someone who You know, if something was not fully intelligible, you just cast it out of reality, considered an unreal.
00:07:15
Speaker
Yeah, and in that sense, in a way, I want to take ah a back take a step back from Descartes to Nicholas of Cousa. That's one way of putting it. ah I mean, I agree with Cousa that between the infinite and the finite, there is no proportion.
00:07:31
Speaker
So that's crucial, that thought for me. Yes, yes. And yet we cannot push that to the point that you make of Cusanos, as some actually interpreters have done, a total skeptic.
00:07:43
Speaker
Right. He's not a total skeptic. He believes you can know a lot about nature. Indeed, he is one of the first to argue for a mathematization of nature, of science.
00:07:58
Speaker
So mathematics provides a key for an ever better understanding of what what is out there. And yeah so yeah, to emphasize that point, the the um you know, infinitum, infiniti ad finitum nulla es proportio, between the finite and the infinite there is no proportion. Right. This Kuzin formulation, which I suppose predates him, but it plays a very important role in his thought. Yeah. And and in my thought, I
Relevance of Cusa's Ideas Today
00:08:31
Speaker
accept it. Yes, right.
00:08:32
Speaker
And this idea is that, you know, there is no... um that the the infinite cannot really be compared to the finite.
00:08:45
Speaker
the There's no proportion between the infinite and the finite. It's very tricky. I mean, in Cusa, on one hand, what you say is right. But we also have to recognize that we say one number is greater than another number, although the number sequence goes on at infinitum.
00:09:10
Speaker
And in one sense, every number is equally distant from what we might call the greatest number, which is only an idea of thought. We cannot make sense of the greatest number.
00:09:22
Speaker
and right But yet it provides us somehow as a measure so that we can say this number is larger than that number, which we obviously do whenever we count.
00:09:34
Speaker
So we must be able to make judgments of better approximations here, even though they all remain infinitely distant from the ideal. Right.
00:09:47
Speaker
and and And that's where maybe we could, you know, return to this idea of how in some ways what you appreciate in Cusa you find in Kant, yeah but in some ways not. So the way in which you want to acknowledge a type a type of there's ah There's an element of ontological transcendence. There's something in being, there's a dimension of being, let's say God, who is infinite and therefore um our proportional thinking, thinking that relies on comparison, would seem to inevitably be shipwrecked at at God as the infinite. If God is the infinite and there's no proportion between the infinite and the finite, then ultimately
00:10:37
Speaker
Comparative thinking, maybe even rational thinking will not be able to ah to and to grasp that reality the God as the ground of all reality and in that room Reminds us a little bit of Kant in that he also Acknowledged certain limits. Yeah to human understanding, you know, we do not understand the thing in itself and Yeah, but what I find clear in Kuzanus is that he recognizes that the infinite, although absolutely transcendent, must yet provide our our thinking and actions
Influence of the Infinite on Human Thought
00:11:19
Speaker
with measure. yeah
00:11:20
Speaker
That he recognizes, and for him, therefore, also the doctrine of Imago Dei, that we are the image of God, created in God's image, becomes very important to him and to me. And ah within ourselves, we carry an idea of the infinite, which invites us to think of the largest number, the ideal human being, and to make these the measure of our actions here, even though we know that they will never be fulfilled.
00:11:56
Speaker
yeah And yet they provide a measure. So I can say just for him counting, It goes on at infinitum. The largest number is, in a way, an impossible thought. And yet it provides our thinking with a measure in that we can say seven is more than four and simple statements like that. We can we constantly measure, and that presupposes something that although finally not available, yet guides our the progress of our thinking or whatever.
00:12:33
Speaker
yeah And science depends on that. So there's a regulative ideal of nature as totally transparent to knowledge. It will never be reached.
00:12:45
Speaker
But yet we can say that science has made progress without difficulty. Right. So it seems like in Kant, what lies beyond... the limits of our knowing.
00:12:58
Speaker
um you know It reminds me a little bit of in the in the Inferno, when the famous speech that Odysseus gives regarding you know the that Dante creates
Cusa's Analogy of Polygons and Circles
00:13:14
Speaker
of Odysseus his men going beyond the the story that dante creates of odysseus and his men going beyond ah where they should go and they end up, you know, dying in shipwreck. but And in there, um that reminds me of Kant insofar as when there's no, it's a fool's errand to transgress the limit.
00:13:37
Speaker
the Crossing the limit, there's nothing really productive yeah in attempting to cross that limit. Whereas in your thought, you want to somehow draw and acknowledge a limit to human understanding and reason, but at the same time, like you said, you know drawing on Kusa, somehow this infinite, which we cannot ultimately grasp or contain conceptually, is still, it marks us, we are marked by the infinite, and that's the imago dei kind of idea.
00:14:12
Speaker
And then also, like you said, it the infinite is going to provide the measure. Yeah. We carry a thought of the infinite within ourselves. are Every human being in that sense is marked by that possibility of thinking the infinite.
00:14:31
Speaker
And that is involved when we think of the ideal human being. The ideal human being is a thought rather like the largest number, impossible to realize,
00:14:43
Speaker
And yet it guides the progress of our thinking and doing action. yeah It provides morality with a measure. And that that's one of the the difficulties um with understanding Cusa and with struggling with him is how could that which exceeds our understanding that which um in principle lies beyond understanding. Yeah, and he wrestled with this in part with thinking with the problem of the incarnation.
00:15:19
Speaker
Right. God had to reveal himself in the finite to be at all relevant in any way. here And a first revelation is the creation. And the creation, God becomes, if you want, visible.
00:15:36
Speaker
And of course, the the birth of the incarnation in the person of Christ is a second incarnation here. But the creation is already a first ah descent, if you want, of the infinite into the visible.
00:15:55
Speaker
Every finite thing partakes of the infinite here. We will never understand fully even a leaf Kant pointed this out, even a lay blade of grass.
00:16:09
Speaker
And yet we make progress. We understand things better and better. Yeah. Yeah, he has this wonderful analogy of basic of the polygon, use trying to use a polygon to recreate a circle. So, you know, he says that a polygon, however many angles it has, never becomes equal to a circle. That's right. Unless it is resolved into the circle.
00:16:38
Speaker
And so you can imagine, you know, you have a circle on the page and You first
Imago Dei and Moral Guidance
00:16:42
Speaker
draw a triangle and, okay, that in some ways approximates the circle, but then you improve it by giving it four sides and then you give it five sides. And that's the metaphor, which, by the way, we find already in Dante.
00:16:56
Speaker
If we could square the circle, we could know God. It's basically the same problem. Yeah. but we cannot square the circle and that has been rigorously proved. But that does not mean, and that's interesting, that does not mean that we have any difficulty calling one polygon more adequate to the circle than another. The one with more sides comes closer to the circle. So there is no question here of being able to distinguish better from worse.
00:17:28
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Clearly, the 5,000-sided polygon is closer to the circle than the three-sided polygon. But yet, it's still... It's still infinitely distant. Right, because we can add as many signs as want. Yes, you want. And that can go on. it and It's like the largest number.
00:17:47
Speaker
Right. It's always the same figure, really, for Kuzanas, which repeats itself endlessly. Yeah. Like the curve and the straight line and so on.
00:17:58
Speaker
Yeah, and maybe we can go back to the idea of Imago Dei. Yeah, you think that this is, you have some very strong statements about this being sort of... I think basically this is our this offers the key to, on one hand, doing justice to science,
00:18:21
Speaker
and yet recognizing its limits here. It's a little bit, I mean, I spent a lot of time on Wittgenstein, and Wittgenstein and the Tractatus sort of gives you a model which can compare to imposing a grid on some blob, and you can get closer and closer to an adequate description of the blob by imposing a finer and finer grid and filling in what looks darker to you.
00:18:55
Speaker
But you will ah the description in terms of the grid will never do justice to a curved line. Never. there's ah So there is an infinite gap.
00:19:08
Speaker
how How adequate your description may be, and that's a little bit ah now the problem of the relationship of the computer to reality. yeah It's a little bit like the computer, in a way, imposes a grid and can get terribly accurate.
00:19:29
Speaker
But there will always be a gap. the curved Just as the curved line will never be captured by the square grid. yeah And correct me if I'm wrong, but it it seems like this connects to the issue of nihilism where you're worried that in modern philosophy, if we you know if we if we exclude the element of transcendence, the recognition that something always lies beyond our constructions, beyond our conceptual frameworks, if we
00:20:10
Speaker
Coupled with the thought that it provides us also as a measure. Right. That's crucial. Yeah. that's, I think, what attracted me to Kuzanis, that combination.
00:20:24
Speaker
Yeah. That he sees clearly that we need both. And, of course, for him, faith allows him, finally, to say that there was, in fact, the perfect man, maybe Christ. Right, right. Yeah.
00:20:40
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I'm i'm reminded of ah that famous quote from Heidegger that that science doesn't think. And on the one hand, you know that seems to be um you know dissimilar to your position. Yeah, doesn't no, I agree with basically, yeah. But on the other hand, it seems like you would agree that science itself is maybe not capable of providing a source of meaning, a source of existential orientation. That's right. And that ultimately, to find and to ground meaning in life, we do need something beyond science.
00:21:29
Speaker
But I think, on the other hand, one has to admit also that a mathianian like a mathematician like Kantor was a set theory. I have a footnote to that, I think, in my book.
00:21:42
Speaker
ah came very close to thinking in the about God even. Right. So that there are some scientists who I would say think, and when they think, they become philosophers. Right.
00:21:56
Speaker
Yeah, I mean. um So I wouldn't want to say just yeah science can't think. Right, right. It doesn't think when it does a certain type of work. Yeah.
00:22:06
Speaker
so But yeah scientists should become more thoughtful. Yeah, I mean, it it seems intuitive that you know if if the scientist's goal is to understand, let's say Reality. Reality or the natural world or...
00:22:23
Speaker
And if it realizes you know even this rose is inexhaustible, that I can never quite um fathom it and capture it in all its particularity, um in a way, it's that's science itself coming up against the infinite. that That's right. In a way, this rose itself is a...
00:22:47
Speaker
is is ah is this you know It cannot lead to a final conclusion. Right. um And so there it seems like, yeah, it could be part of science to recognize. But I suppose, on the other hand, you know there's a difference between thinking...
00:23:05
Speaker
um in a way the particularity of a rose or or something in nature is inexhaustible. We can never describe it fully.
00:23:17
Speaker
That type of infinite is different than the kind of infinite in Cusa where we're talking about the infinite as the ground of all reality as the inexhaustible source of all being. And and so that's a type of religious or theological Well, I think that these two finally blur. that is That if I really meditate on the leaf and see the infinite in the leaf, I think that's where Meister Eckhart, I think, it gives us an important point ah when he says you know that to really see the leaf as created by God is better than seeing an angel.
00:24:08
Speaker
ah There's an important truth here that is every ah created s thing partakes of God's infinity.
00:24:20
Speaker
And when we open ourselves to its infinity, we also open ourselves to God's infinity. So that easily leads to a kind of nature mysticism. Yeah, yeah.
00:24:32
Speaker
In terms of how we partake of the infinite and how we, the human being, resembles the infinite. You you make a very um big emphasis emphasis of our creative capacities, our ability to create.
00:24:49
Speaker
that Our ability to create
00:24:54
Speaker
is one way in which we really see that resemblance, I suppose. Yeah, and there I see a difference between Plato and Cousanos. That is, Cousanos, unlike Plato and more like Kant, emphasized the creativity of the human knower.
00:25:10
Speaker
That is language for concepts, for Kuzanus, an unfolding of the human mind. and So in this sense, he becomes a critic of Plato on this point.
00:25:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's, for example, with mathematical forms, it seems like Kuzanus has this constructive, constructivist. Yeah, the own unfolding of the human mind. Yeah.
00:25:37
Speaker
And that goes also for concepts. human mind unfolds itself here in our relationship to nature, but it's still the human mind that... Yeah.
00:25:52
Speaker
But on the other hand, he does say that he has a line, something like, God you know uses geometry and arithmetic to create... those locations are in a way necessary as...
00:26:06
Speaker
But in a way, all these positive statements are in a sense false, literally taken. yeah But we want to say something like that because we have to recognize the affinity between what we can know and the divinely created reality. So there must be some sort of affinity.
00:26:27
Speaker
when So when we, with our mathematical constructions, can do justice to nature, That leads easily to statements like God created the world you know using mathematical form.
00:26:44
Speaker
yeah But it's that's not to be taken Absolutely literally. I mean, in a sense, all positive statements about God for Kuzanus, taken absolutely literally, are false. Right. Yeah, he had famously, you know, God is beyond every affirmation and every... But one can... One has to distinguish that from a totally negative theology, and that Kuzanus keeps that idea of the measure, the elusive measure that yet illuminates our thoughts and actions.
00:27:16
Speaker
Yeah, he, um you know, thinking of the title of the book, Unlearned Ignorance, you know, he says that the precise truth shines incomprehensibly that's right within our ignorance. So even within our ignorance, within our inability, let's say, to grasp the infinite. yeah the And this seems to be unlike Kant, where within that ignorance,
00:27:45
Speaker
Somehow there's a relation there is a connection still to The infinite that's right if the infinite is not fully graspable fully By the way, we don't want to get into a discussion of Kant here, but yeah Kant has the idea of the transcendental object Which must be distinguished from the thing in itself. I think many people confuse the two.
00:28:12
Speaker
The transcendental object is the ideal object that i when I ah try to understand anything, my effort is haunted by this idea of a complete understanding of nature. That's the ideal transcendental object.
00:28:31
Speaker
That's an ideal that haunts my work. But this is not the thing in itself. The thing in itself transcends the idea the transcendental object. Yeah. so so So that part of Kant I take very seriously.
00:28:47
Speaker
yeah And of course I take very seriously the critique of judgment as an attempt to bridge the gulf between the first two critiques.
00:29:00
Speaker
yeah So in a way beauty for Kant too is the bridge judgment. that is necessary to hold the hold the whole together here, that gap which has been opened up yeah between freedom and nature, really.
00:29:16
Speaker
Whereas in Cusa, you emphasize that the bridge is given in Book 3 on Christ, that Christ as the... Well, Christ is really the paradigm of beauty, if you want.
00:29:27
Speaker
Yeah. there's a very The incarnation has a very similar function to the that of the critique of judgment. Yeah. That is, beauty has to bridge the the gulf.
00:29:39
Speaker
and And for the believing Christian, christ because that beauty becomes incarnated in Christ. Can it ultimately be understood how... Because if if there's no proportion between the infinite and the finite, you might think, well, no bridging...
00:29:59
Speaker
could be possible. You know, Cusa says in Christ, the absolute maximum and the contracted maximum, the the universe somehow coincide. But is that ultimately um understanding how he could bridge that gap? Is that also something that we could never grasp intellectually or?
00:30:21
Speaker
Well, the gap itself, I mean, it's a little bit like a circle metaphor. Yeah. There will always be the gap between the circle and the polygon, no matter how many sides you add.
00:30:37
Speaker
How do you understand that difference? In other words, we have no trouble understanding this difference. We have an intuition of the circle. We know what the polygon is. We can even make proofs that the circle cannot be squared.
00:30:54
Speaker
But how do you understand the difference? Yeah. yeah but I think that's the same problem. Yeah. um And it seems ah that you know there are other interpreters of CUSA, more recent interpreters, Ernst Cassira, where they do not emphasize quite as much this third book on Christ. Oh yeah.
00:31:20
Speaker
No, I think that's true. And for me, it is really not only a central part. In a way, it's necessary to complete the system, I think.
00:31:31
Speaker
And of course, there is, in in the third chapter, there is that step from what reason, where you know where reason can lead us and where faith comes in. And to believe that there was a concrete an individual who is the incarnation of Christ, that only faith can lead you to. you can Reason can create the idea, but to occupy the idea requires faith.
00:32:01
Speaker
so So reason can lead us to seeing that there is a gap and that it needs to be... So reason can certainly cast a lot of light, even of a lot of the mysteries in the third book.
00:32:14
Speaker
But the crucial step from, as I say, filling in the yeah these space and the place that reason has opened up, that takes faith.
00:32:25
Speaker
Now, if if if it's also the case that Christ provides a solution to nihilism, then it seems... Obviously in a very full sense, but I want to say even the idea in the first two chapters of the third book, ah even the the idea of the coincidence of the infinite and the finite in an individual is good enough to overcome nihilism.
00:32:53
Speaker
Oh, even the idea? Okay. Yeah. I think even that is enough. But it doesn't give you that, I think, ah especially if you come to the question of immortality and so on, for that Christ becomes crucial for Kizanas.
00:33:10
Speaker
The reason cannot lead you there. Yeah. so So reason could lead you to see that? For morality, reason is not.
00:33:21
Speaker
Hmm. Okay. And he makes that quite clear and that we carry within ourselves sort of a natural, he speaks of, I forget, it's natural light or something, but the he has no trouble. I think I id find it i find it indeed more satisfactory than the Kantian morality, which puts too much weight on pure reason.
00:33:49
Speaker
But I think Kuzanus has, even without faith, a strong morality.
00:33:57
Speaker
um And he certainly can make knowledge, sense of cognitive progress. But perhaps without Christ as a concrete... He can make sense of it with Christ as an idea.
00:34:13
Speaker
Yes. We, within ourselves, carry this ideal and that provides our lives with a measure. Yeah. But that ideal need not correspond to anything real.
00:34:27
Speaker
Right. But it would need to correspond if we are thinking in terms of the flourishing or the happiness of the human being. I think for Kusa, our happiness ultimately is not perfectly realizable in this life. the happiness for him requires, as you know as for Kant, that requires religion.
00:34:54
Speaker
Yeah. Okay, so so without faith we can perhaps... We feel somehow incomplete for Kusa. Yeah. There's something that we long for which we don't have.
00:35:08
Speaker
And is is that longing ultimately to see kind of, the or to kind of join the infinite in some way, or to unite with the infinite, or to see the infinite face-to-face, as it were? i mean, is that...
00:35:24
Speaker
the longing we have. and And so even if we can have this idea or an ideal of there being um a coincidence of the absolute maximum and the yeah in the in the contracted maximum, even if we can have that idea perhaps to really be satisfied, to really be happy, to ultimately flourish in some sense, we would need there to be a concrete, real connection between the finite creature. But we have something like a connection even without religious faith. okay
00:36:05
Speaker
Whenever we meet, for instance, really a human being and open ourselves to the human being as a free person, or even when we sink ourselves into that meditation on a leaf. I mean, that's in Eastern thought, that sort of thing becomes very important, that we meditate on, if you want, to the leaf as an incarnation of the divine, yeah which it is.
00:36:35
Speaker
So, um you know, I wonder about, from the modern someone entrenched in the modern perspective, um, they might realize, okay, the otherness of a human being in a way transcends me, the, the the leaf in all its inexhaustible particularity transcends me.
00:36:57
Speaker
Um, but if they don't anchor the infinite that they glimpse in a real, actual infinite, an actual Godhead, will that be sufficient?
00:37:13
Speaker
Well, it depends on how you experience the leaf. In other words, obviously there's something like grace involved in having that experience of the presence of God in the leaf.
00:37:28
Speaker
Right. It doesn't help just, you know, there's something, and that's true, but of meeting another person. to really be open to that person, that also is something the other person extends something like grace to us. Yeah.
00:37:47
Speaker
Yeah. So do you think someone who really um plums that depth of the other person, that inevitably they will, if they really appreciate what makes that possible, they will see that, okay,
00:38:07
Speaker
ultimately this is anchored in a genuine real infinite that exists beyond me and that is present present somehow in a sort of limited fashion but still here present in the person or can someone uh have these experiences of the leaf and of the other person know beauty but never um you know, reach the notion of a genuine... I think if the experience is full, you don't need to go beyond it.
00:38:42
Speaker
Yeah. That's not necessary. It's not a... Yeah. It becomes self-justifying. so So it seems that, from your perspective then, um the experience of the other person, you beauty, can be...
00:39:01
Speaker
a way out of nihilism and it doesn't necessarily require... No, I think it is. It is the way out of... I think for most of us, that is the other person is the most obvious way yeah to answer the nihilism. I think nature can help.
00:39:18
Speaker
I think for many of us, nature, and especially again in Chinese thought, I wrote a little preface for a book, translation of my commentary on the Heidegger's The Origin of the Work of Art, which is now appearing in Chinese.
00:39:37
Speaker
And that preface, maybe I should send it to you. Yeah, that'd be great. that is It's a very interesting preface where they had asked me to say a little bit about how is Heidegger's thought related to Chinese thought?
00:39:52
Speaker
And there isn't all that much of a relation, actually, but I do a pretty good job in making one. so ah And I have your email, I take it. Yeah, you sent me an email.
00:40:04
Speaker
So I can send you that. That's an interesting paper. Yeah, I'd love to read it, yeah. um it just It will appear probably only in Chinese, in a Chinese translation.
00:40:16
Speaker
but I maybe should try to publish it in English. I don't know. so So on the one hand, um it seems like Kuz is setting limits on knowledge you know in kind of two ways or in two respects. thirst there's There's the gap between our knowledge and God as the infinite. But then there's also a kind of second gap between our knowledge and the inexhaustible... Nature....particularity of nature itself. yeah And it's in the end the same gap.
00:40:47
Speaker
m Because every for him, ah nature has to be understood as having its ground in God. It's just an unfolding of the divine essence.
00:41:01
Speaker
Right. but but But still you would say that that understanding he has as nature being an unfolding of the divine essence, one need not have that understanding to necessarily escape the nihilist threat.
00:41:19
Speaker
One could instead find within nature... One could find in nature and in in the other person, yes. In other person, okay, yeah. And um yeah maybe we could you know think a little bit more about um the thelog that theological side for a moment. Because I think Aquinas and other medieval thinkers, you know they also held that God is infinite beyond our full understanding. You're right.
00:41:54
Speaker
So do you think that Kuz's approach to God... Cousa's apophatic approach to God, do you think ultimately there's ah there's there remains an important difference between his and these other think medieval thinkers when it comes to the infinite? I think that it's related to Cousa's rejection of an Aristotelian anthropology, which I think Aquinas basically keeps.
00:42:22
Speaker
And of course, he keeps the natural philosophy of Aristotle. And Cousanus rejects both. So he puts an altogether modern weight on the human being as maker, as creator. yeah So the human being is given a new dignity by Cousinus, which goes beyond what Aristotle ah could furnish Aquinas with.
00:42:53
Speaker
Yeah, and we've already kind of emphasized that. like so for example so and I think it is that creativity of the human being which receives an emphasis in Kuzanos that breaks totally, as he's aware, with Aristotle
00:43:11
Speaker
here. yeah So and in a sense, he undermines Aristotelian science and also the Aristotelian anthropology. Is he under undermining the Aristotelian science in that does he not give the same kind of role for final?
00:43:30
Speaker
Well, it's because, of course, in part, the the Aristotelian world is finite. And Kodzana breaks it open. It becomes infinite. And the with that, the Aristotelian theory of elements loses its foundation.
00:43:50
Speaker
Because the theory of elements is based on secondary qualities. ah that as you can because so I do that in the book, the table. You have cold and hot and cold and wet and dry.
00:44:05
Speaker
And you can construct the four elements out of that. You have a little table. I give it in the book. But that makes no longer any sense with Kizanas. So the whole physics of Aristotle has lost its foundation.
00:44:18
Speaker
oh And therefore, Cousanus calls for a mathematical science, which is totally un-Aristotelian. That is, mathematics now provides the key to science.
00:44:31
Speaker
yeah We have to give mathematical descriptions. Yeah, and in that way, you know there's a certain similarity between Cousa and Descartes, the emphasis on oh yeah mathematical structure for understanding. Oh yeah very much so.
00:44:49
Speaker
Yeah, and Descartes had read Cusa.
00:44:54
Speaker
so yeah ah But ah Descartes doesn't it do justice or to his doctrine of learned ignorance.
00:45:06
Speaker
the Descartes comes a little too close to equating what we can know with the real. Right. Or if you can put it this way, then, going to Spinoza,
00:45:18
Speaker
ah Kuzanis challenges the panarchy of the principle of sufficient reason.
00:45:26
Speaker
The principle of sufficient reason is not adequate to reality. And that's where he agrees with Kant. Kant is also a critic of Spinoza.
00:45:39
Speaker
So so where would um where where is that manifested, that the that the principle of sufficient reason Is it in that... That the principle of sufficient reason has limits? Yeah, yeah. Well, simply in the split between the infinite and the finite.
00:45:58
Speaker
Ah, okay. That's all you need, because reason always will construct what is fundamentally finite. You'll never escape the finite. so We can sort of understand the infinite, but we cannot reasonably grasp it.
00:46:15
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah maybe we could talk about, you know, if human reason relies on proportional thinking, if if rational inquiry relies on a comparison of the the known with the unknown, um how is it that we are able to have this thought of the infinite? It's through ah another faculty, right? He calls it... It's inseparable from the awareness of our freedom.
00:46:43
Speaker
Simply as free beings. and and so is it Freedom has no limits. Has factual limits. But as freedom, it has no limits.
00:46:56
Speaker
So whatever boundary you give me, I can think beyond it. Or can ask, what's on the other side of that fence? right Even if I have no idea what's on the other side of that fence.
00:47:10
Speaker
And you I think he calls it... That's by the way, in Kuzanis comes out in the vision of God was that wall of paradise. He speaks of the wall of paradise.
00:47:21
Speaker
And he says, we ah to see beyond the wall of paradise, of course, the wall of paradise separates what we can reasonably understand from what lies beyond, which is paradise.
00:47:34
Speaker
So paradise will never be understood. And reason has to suffer shipwreck, he says there, in order to glimpse paradise. That's a beautiful metaphor in that.
00:47:47
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And it it recalls the the idea that in God as the absolute maximum, all all opposites coincide. Yeah.
00:47:59
Speaker
And, you know, he famously, ah John Venk, ah the contemporary of Cusa, you know, worried. Oh, yeah. And there's a legitimate, I give quite a lot of room actually to Venk in the book.
00:48:13
Speaker
Absolutely. As a critic of Cusa. And some of his points are very well taken. Yeah. Yeah, he felt that, you know, this would introduce irrationalism. That's right. It would, um because seems reason depends on the principle of non-contradiction and Yeah, he felt you leave reason for Kuzo, finally, faith leaves reason behind.
00:48:40
Speaker
Now, um maybe we could briefly talk a little bit about, you know, how is it that God, you know, ah some some might think, oh how could God transcend every affirmation?
00:48:56
Speaker
Ultimately, isn't God... the cause of all things? Isn't he necessary? How does he even transcend those names? Well, for Cusa, all of these are inadequate, like all parlors of theology,
00:49:15
Speaker
adequate analog ah inadequate analogies, which we try to express sort of the dependence of creatures on the Creator.
00:49:26
Speaker
But that's an inadequate analogy for him. That does not capture God as he is. That's why I can say, I mean, that the only true, every proposition in negative theology is true, but doesn't say anything.
00:49:48
Speaker
And he says, nevertheless, we need a positive theology, Because with without that, religion would lose all content. The people wouldn't have anything hold on to.
00:50:00
Speaker
So he defends a positive theology, even as he says, ah all its propositions are at bottom falls. But there are degrees of falsehood. Some are more false than others.
00:50:15
Speaker
Like the circle, again. That's a wonderful metaphor. And the Christian theology for him is obviously the most adequate. But that comes out also in this attempt of the reconciliation of the faith. The faiths are all like more or less adequate or inadequate attempts to do justice to the circle with a polygon inscribed.
00:50:43
Speaker
yeah So these these analogies, these words these terms that we use for God, light, the maximum even cause, they're somehow, they don't strictly apply, but they beyond the But we nevertheless need them to live a meaningful life. We have to make God in a way commensurable with what we can grasp, even though he finally transcends all these attempts.
00:51:11
Speaker
But they're not equally inadequate. Again, that's the important thing. Right. the the impentance um The importance of the measure in Kuzanus, that is crucial.
00:51:24
Speaker
Yeah, and it goes back to the the polygon again. yeah The 50,000-sided polygon is indeed closer to being equal to the circle. But it's also already apparent in these, for Kuzanus, all knowledge is really thought of in the image of counting.
00:51:42
Speaker
And already there, we get the idea of progress. That is, numbers obviously progress. yeah And how can we think that progress?
00:51:54
Speaker
That, by the way, also presupposes that we can think a minimum. We could not count without one or some unit. We need a unit. Yeah, oneness is sort of yeah the principle of number. Yeah, so that's... ah But obviously, mathematics is crucial in trying to do justice to Kuzanus, his mathematical speculation. yeah Maybe another theme we could touch on, little maybe another theme we could just touch on is that Kuzan is famous for is
00:52:31
Speaker
the way in which, and Venk, of course, will interpret this as a kind of pantheism, but Kuzsa says that you know something to the effect of all things being in God as in their enfolding, and Venk worries that this is a type of pantheism, and And you seem to be, you have the thought that... think pantheism talk again what would be, that makes, takes things too literally again. That's not recognizing the learned ignorance. that
00:53:03
Speaker
It tries to make a statement like creation is God. Right. But we don't have a sufficient grasp of God and creation to may be able to say that.
00:53:14
Speaker
yeah so So the statement that all things are in God, it it speaks to something true, which is that everything that we are is sort of pre-contained in God. you know if If a creature is beauty, well, the beauty of that create creature... Although again, the containment metaphor, it must be questioned.
00:53:35
Speaker
It's just like a big pot. But God is different clearly in every one of them, in everything real. Now, you also engage with Meister Eckhart in your commentary. Yeah. and And you kind of, it seems that you think that while Cusa can respond adequately to the pantheist charge, potentially Eckhart
00:54:03
Speaker
does drift too far into the pantheist direction, is in opinion. Well, he tends, I think Eckhart has a problem a little bit with If you want the idea of the measure again, that Yeah, Eckhart is tricky. i mean, one has to... Some of the sermons certainly invite very serious questions.
00:54:29
Speaker
Yeah. And it would really... it's just it's you know Insofar as Eckhart sometimes seems to suggest there's a kind of direct identity...
00:54:41
Speaker
between the creature and God, that really misses what is so important to you, which is this element of ontological transcendence, of something exceeding Yeah, the distance.
00:54:52
Speaker
No, that's true. Yeah, and especially among Eckhart followers, and that's the tendency to to just collapse, really, God and the human being, which exists there, the threat of saying, in my essence, am God. Yeah.
00:55:10
Speaker
Well, I think, you know, overall, it I think we've conveyed how Kuzza is really often walking a razor's edge, it seems, you know. um You know, he pushes transcendence, but also when you push transcendence, you kind of risk...
00:55:26
Speaker
just utter silence and incoherence. I think we have to walk on that razor's edge, if you want to put it that way. yeah I think thinking, responsible thinking has to do that.
00:55:37
Speaker
So there's no escaping it. Did you bring, you but brought me a hot tea. I'll go it. This my cold tea. Oh, that's your cold tea. You can bring me a new tea. Oh, maybe I'll grab my coffee. Well, we can go a little more and then have lunch.
00:55:52
Speaker
did you and Did you understand it, Elizabeth? Yeah, it was clear enough. I've ever understood before. Is this my hot tea? No, this is mine.
00:56:07
Speaker
And you can put it here, then I can reach it easily. will. What? I spilled. Oh, you spilled. Well, you can take a towel. Yeah. Now, one question one could raise, of course, is ah the two other thinkers who are closest to me are Kant and Heidegger, obviously.
00:56:25
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And one could raise the question, in what sense do I find Kuzanis more adequate than either yeah don't either Heidegger or... Yeah, I was also um kind of curious what you would think of ah that famous statement from Heidegger and Der Spiegel that, you know, only a god can save us.
00:56:49
Speaker
It seems like... Oh, only a god can save us, yeah. if Yeah. not the That's a despairing statement. Yeah. But it means basically only an incarnation
00:57:04
Speaker
of some way in which the whatever is highest trend incarnates itself in the visible, that we'd be a god, can save us. yes Something like that has to happen. We have to experience...
00:57:19
Speaker
in the visible, the highest. Yeah. So, yeah, it's it's it's a kind of acknowledgement that there is a gap. Yeah, and unless it takes the hurdling statements here.
00:57:33
Speaker
There is a gap, and I think that basically ah he's right. Only if there are experiences, I would say, of persons of nature that bridge that gap.
00:57:46
Speaker
Right. ah can our life have a meaning? I think obviously love does it for many people.
00:57:57
Speaker
I mean, maybe we could touch too on how Kuz's cosmology maybe creates even more tension in terms of, or more maybe makes this threat of nihilism in a way seem more pressing. Yeah, because we are lost in an infinite cosmos.
00:58:22
Speaker
And for all we know, we are alone. And that's sort of a depressing thought. You want something It's always the same need. We want something to answer. We want spirit to answer spirit.
00:58:36
Speaker
and And I think that we should realize that this earth is good enough to answer that need. And the so that's why I argue for a post-Copernican, that sort of a phrase which has become, has caught on, that post-Copernican geocentrism that is accepting the Copernican revolution which dethrones the Earth yeah from its central position, yet existentially the Earth retains its central position.
00:59:09
Speaker
And we have to recognize that. That is, we have to find our love and so on here on Earth, not on some other star. Would that be a disagreement with Kuzit? Because I had this sense that with Kuzit's like,
00:59:24
Speaker
Maybe now, given the cosmology that Kusa has, you know you mentioned the infinite universe and the possibility of many inhabited worlds. So that seems to de-center the earth. It seems to remove a uniqueness of the earth. And but and then acknowledging your concern about the human being having an existential orientation, needing some kind of center.
00:59:51
Speaker
But you cannot forget that for Kusa too, as a Christian, the fact that the earth is the see place where Christ was born yeah makes it unique. right And I think in this sense, in a lesser sense, but the fact that I, let's say, can fall love in love here,
01:00:11
Speaker
that makes the earth a center. That's what provides my life as a center. oh yeah So I don't think you need faith in Christ to provide that center. I think love will do it.
01:00:27
Speaker
Yeah, it seems like with Kuzsa, he... he you might think he he wanted, that we needed Christ as a sort of spiritual center. Although, like you said, through the incarnation, I suppose, the earth regains a type of uniqueness and regains a type of centrality. Well, that principle of homogeneity, which is a consequence of his cosmology, right requires that there be intelligent life somewhere, who knows where.
01:00:55
Speaker
Yeah. And in a way, that's what our science has also ah basically accepted, that principle of homogeneity. There must be some intelligent life somewhere, who knows? yeah But for intents and purposes, it's irrelevant because now with the speed of light and what we know about the cosmos, it's clear we are never going to enter a conversation with other intelligent beings.
01:01:24
Speaker
I mean, that dream is over, I think, in spite of, what's his name, our Mars guy, Musk. Musk, Elon, Elon, yeah.
01:01:36
Speaker
So, no, I think for all intents and purposes, we are alone here on Earth, and we have to accept that this is where we have to find meaning. Yeah. And yeah, the point of homogeneity is really important to you. Yeah. That, you know, in comparison to the medieval that's right cosmos, which is heterogeneous in the sense that you have this sort of structured hierarchy of the world. And up and down and everything. Yeah. You have um Earth and then beyond that, the planets and beyond that, the firmament of stars and then beyond that, you know.
01:02:12
Speaker
Not spatially beyond, but but the but God realm. But existentially, the this life, our world remains our life world. And as such...
01:02:25
Speaker
remains the center of our lives. and So that's what I mean by a post-Copernican geocentrism. Post-Copernican, because I want to recognize the legitimy of so legitimacy of science.
01:02:40
Speaker
I think we have to recognize it if we want to do justice to the world we live in. But we also have to recognize its limits again. And that means that we are in a way stuck here on earth in a good and a bad sense.
01:02:57
Speaker
If we think of it, um the centrality of the earth being regained through the life world. In other words, this is our world. This is where our life occurs. And in virtue of it being... um And of course, for the person of faith, that's... ah The centrality of the earth is guaranteed by the fact that Christ was born here.
01:03:23
Speaker
Right. um So there it seems like there's a type of sub subjectivity to it. it's media the The centrality of the earth... in in your thought would be mediated by our perspective, our standpoint.
01:03:38
Speaker
yeah It depends on perspective and standpoint. And whereas, you know, maybe the more traditional platonic position might be that, well, the intelligibility of the world, it ultimately speaks to a real, you know, cosmic, well,
01:04:03
Speaker
potentially cosmic hierarchy of ideas and hierarchy of external realities which we can participate in outside of ourselves. And so even if the cosmology breaks down, that kind of hierarchical cosmology breaks down in Platonism, you can still think that, well, these this platonic hierarchy of forms.
01:04:30
Speaker
Yeah, no, I would say that that hierarchical view of, I think Kuzo would reject. Right. Because because that because he ultimately he has a kind of constructivist understanding. of Yeah.
01:04:49
Speaker
Yeah, I guess personally I would worry that if beauty, if justice, if these various you know fundamental notions are constructed, then when I perceive something beautiful, I can't say that it's the radiation, the splendor of something external to me. I can't say this is the splendor of the beautiful. i have to say it's... Well, I thought we said that yeah the beautiful is precisely...
01:05:22
Speaker
It has a mediating function. It is precisely where the absolutely transcendent descends to the visible. Yes, I would want to say that for sure. But that's, I would think that you can, that certainly Kuzanis would say. Yeah.
01:05:40
Speaker
And that you can hold on to. Even with the construction? With this principle of cosmic homogeneity, yes. Okay. Yeah. No, there's just... It's of a different order because it happens whenever you see a human being, whenever yeah or whenever you really encounter a human being.
01:06:03
Speaker
And that's interesting in Kant. What does the experience of the other person, how does Kant understand that experience? I'm very interested in that question.
01:06:16
Speaker
And the closest Because that is for Kant, the person is the thing in itself. It's the thing that freedom makes every person a thing in itself.
01:06:30
Speaker
So the experience of a person must mean the becoming visible of the thing in itself.
01:06:39
Speaker
And in the critique of judgment, there is a statement where he does indeed interpret the beautiful in these terms. so it is So for him, it is when you experience a person, that too is ah
01:06:59
Speaker
a becoming visible of the thing itself for Kant. Yeah, and that that reminds me of the imago idea. Yeah, and that's the beauty. That's, the I would say, the key to the importance of beauty in Kant. Mm-hmm.
01:07:15
Speaker
Yeah, you emphasize in your commentary how the idea of image, Mago, is an image of day. yeah It's not merely a copy. It's not merely something that resembles something else. But it's um it's a presentation of it's a presentation where the the invisible is sort of suggested, even if it's not precisely grasped. and And so with the human being, for example.
01:07:49
Speaker
Well, just as you cannot grasp God, you cannot grasp the image of God at it fully.
01:08:01
Speaker
Now, maybe we we could talk a little bit about the interesting way in which the human being is a kind of microcosm for Cusa. Yeah, well, that is not so difficult to understand, given...
01:08:16
Speaker
that the unfolding of our reason is thought of as an image of the unfolding of the divine reason. So the divine reason unfolds itself in creation and our reason unfolds itself in a recreation of what we experience of God's creation.
01:08:38
Speaker
So that gives you the idea of a microcosm, by the way. Right. And that's why, you know, we can't think of the plant as as a potential microcosm because it doesn't have that intellectual activity by which it could mirror.
01:08:56
Speaker
yeah so we are Yeah, we are a microcosm. But on the other hand, he you know we're also... you know because Because I suppose the the the the the angelic intellect could, in a way, mirror the unfolding of God's intellect, but...
01:09:16
Speaker
what we have that the angelic intellect doesn't have is the, is that continuity with the lower orders of creation, the sensory.
01:09:29
Speaker
It's actually the question of the angelic intellect is interesting.
01:09:35
Speaker
I think Kusanus has a little bit of a problem with angels, although he does mention them in a number of places, but he does in an important sense, he doesn't need them.
01:09:46
Speaker
Because the human being yeah is the microcosm. The human being. christ is the ah yeah Christ is higher than any angel. Even Mary is higher other than any angel. yes yeah yeah that that that is ah That's clear in Dante. that yeah so He's not all that interested in angels.
01:10:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's ultimately Christ chooses to elevate the human to unity with God. It's a union of the word, the divine word and the human form. It's not a union of the divine word and the angelic character. And and it seems for Kusa, it's because we are the microcosm, because we have the sensible as well as the spiritual. That's right. That we are the fitting.
01:10:40
Speaker
That's exactly where we are. You know, we we bind the sensible, the super sensible together in our own being as God does.
01:10:51
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:55
Speaker
It makes me think, I mean, um in some ways it seems like art is a more, if this makes sense, a more microcosmic than thought, because thought is more purely spiritual and intellectual. Yeah, well, when I do my little sketches, yeah that's I do feel that they are sort of like,
01:11:15
Speaker
meditations at the same time unless whatever I look at. Yeah. So you do homage to the thing. that Well, you have the little calendar. Yeah.
01:11:27
Speaker
Yeah. So all fits together. And you may wonder if you get hold of the Bavarian Rokoko church book. Yeah. That fills out a lot in ah in a very different way.
01:11:41
Speaker
i don't talk about Kuzo at all, I think. maybe Maybe we can have a conversation on the Bavarian Roper Road Church. Yeah. Yeah. And also, you may want to look at that book I wrote on ah the the last book. What is it called? and The Antinomy of Being, think. Yes. Yeah.
01:12:02
Speaker
Well, maybe to close, can you tell us ah about what you're working on now? You're working on your autobiography, correct? There's a lot of... A lot of churches and some philosophy too. Yeah.
01:12:17
Speaker
Well, Carson, thank you so much for inviting me into your home and having this conversation with me. Well, it was a pleasure to have you here. It's good to talk about Kuzanus, my hero.
01:12:28
Speaker
Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you. Yeah, he is more my hero than either Heidegger or Kant, but they are the other two. So these three thinkers. Yeah.
01:12:40
Speaker
Much more. I mean, I've done a lot of work on Nietzsche and Kierkegaard and so on. But they have not become important in the same way as Kant or Heidegger.