Visio und mensura als Rätselbilder der Identität in De theologicis complementis

MARÍA CECILIA RUSCONI

Nicholas of Cusa on the Self and Self-Consciuousness

Abo Akademi University Press

Lugar: Abo; Año: 2010; p. 187 - 201

<!-- @page { margin: 2cm } P.sdfootnote { margin-left: 0.5cm; text-indent: -0.5cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; font-size: 10pt } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } A.sdfootnoteanc { font-size: 57% } --> In a letter of l4th. september 1453 addressed to the abbot and te monks of Tegernsee, where Nicholas of  Cuse deals with the problem of the mystic union, he declares that"all this mystical theology is to come into the self-infinity, because the infinity implies the coincidence of contradictories... and nobody can see God in a mystic way but in the darkness of coincidence, what is the infinity ". Then he appends that "in these days" he has finished writing a little book about the complementary mathematical considerations  -de mathematicis complementis-; and to this book , he has added another one about the complementary methefhysical considerations -de theologicis complementis-.  Nicholas reviews the content of the second work. Secondly he says that he has, as well, incorporated  a chapter about how we can be guided to the mystical theology by way of a "perceptible experiment". This chapter can only be found in a codex of the royal library in Brussels. The experiment is the same as Nicholas -as he promises in his letter- develops lengthier, two months later in De visione dei. In this paper, the structure of the complementary theological considerations, is explored into two parts: In the first part, it is showed that these speculations can be understood as an exercise to comprehend the infinity. This exercise consists in the construction of theological befigurings. Nicholas presents the construction procedure  -which we know from De docta ignorantia-  as follows:  “For he who looks unto that which is triunely Infinite by ascending from mathematical figures unto theological befigurings, through adding [the concept of] infinity to the mathematical figures and who then frees himself from theological befigurings in order mentally to contemplate only that triunely Infinite Being,will see (insofar as it be granted him) all things as enfoldedly One and will see the One as unfoldedly all things”. In the light of an explanation of the aptitude of the theological befigurings, the second part of this paper has to provide an interpretation of the function that the so called perceptible experiment means in this context.