Nicolaus Cusanus (1401 – 11 Agustus 1464), juga disebut Nicholas of Kues dan Nicholas of Cusa, adalah seorang filsuf dari Jerman, yang juga merupakan seorang Platonis pada masa Renaissans.[1] Selain sebagai filsuf, ia juga seorang imam gereja.[2] Ia disebut juga Nicolaus dari Kues dan Nicolaus Krebs.[2] Cusanus lahir di kota Kues, kota kecil di tepi Sungai Mosel, pada tahun 1401.[1][2] Ia mendapatkan gelar doktor dalam bidang hukum gereja pada tahun 1423.[1] Kemudian ia menjadi utusan Paus ke Konstantinopel.[1] Pada tahun 1449 ia diangkat menjadi kardinal dan uskupBrixen pada tahun 1450.[1] Ia meninggal pada tahun 1464.[1]
Cusanus membedakan ada dua kemampuan pengetahuan manusia.[2] Kemampuan pertama adalah akal yang merupakan kemampuan diskursif manusia, yakni kemampuan berpikir logis, membuat pemisahan-pemisahan, dan menyimpulkan.[2] Kemampuan ini berlaku di dunia indrawi.[2] Kemampuan kedua adalah budi (intellectus), yang merupakan kemampuan untuk menentukan orientasi bagi manusia.[2] Hal ini dapat dibandingkan dengan kemampuan manusia menentukan arah timur, padahal "timur" itu tidak ada dan tak dapat diamati.[2] Aktivitas budi bukanlah hal-hal yang empiris, melainkan melampauinya.[2] Dengan kemampuan budi inilah manusia dapat memahami sedikit sifat Allah.[2]
Karya
Nicolaus Cusanus menulis banyak karya, antara lain:
De auctoritate praesidendi in concilio generali (1434), a proposal for resolving the question of presidency over the deliberations of the Council of Basil.
De concordantia catholica (The Catholic Concordance) (1434), a synthesis of ideas on church and empire balancing hierarchy with consent.[3]
Reparatio kalendarii (1434/5), a plan for reforming the church's calendar.
De Docta ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance) (1440).[4]
De coniecturis (On Conjectures) (1441-2)
Dialogus concludens Amedistarum errorem (1441), an ecclesiological explanation of his papal advocacy.
De date patris luminum (On the Gift of the Father of Lights (1445/6)
De transmutationibus geometricis
De arithmetricis complementis (1445)
De filiatione Dei (On Divine Sonship)
De genesi (On Genesis)
Apologia doctae ignorantiae (The Defense of Learned Ignorance) (1449), suatu tanggapan terhadap tuduhan heretikal dan panteeisme oleh teolog akademik Heidelberg John Wenck dalam suatu karya berjudul De ignota litteratura (On Unknown Learning).[5]
Idiota de mente (The Layman on Mind) (1450). Terdiri dari 4 dialogue: De Sapientia I-II, De Mente III, and De staticis experimentis IV.
De visione Dei (On the Vision of God) (1453), diselesaikan atas permintaan para biarawan Benedictine abbey di Tegernsee.
De pace fidei (1453), ditulis sebagai tanggapan atas berita jatuhnya Konstantinopel di tangan orang Turki.
De theologicis complementis, in which he pursued his continuing fascination with theological applications of mathematical models.
Caesarea circuli quadratura (1457)
De beryllo (On the Beryl) (1458), a brief epistemological treatise using a beryl or transparent stone as the crucial analogy.
De aequalitate (1459)
De principio (1459)
Reformatio generalis, (1459) makalah mengenai reformasi umum gereja, ditulis atas permintaan Paus Pius II, tetapi diacuhkan oleh Paus dan para kardinal.[5]
De apice theoriae (On the Summit of Contemplation) (1464), his last work.[4]
Edisi Modern
Opera omnia, ed. E Hoffmann et al., (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1932-2006) [The modern critical edition, begun under the editorship of Ernst Hoffmann and Raymond Klibansky]
Acta Cusana, ed Erich Muethen and Hermann Hallauer, (1976-) [A series designed to publish all extant documents, letters, deeds and other materials in which Cusanus and his activities are mentioned]
On Learned Ignorance, tr. J Hopkins, (Minneapolis, MN: Banning, 1985)
Jasper Hopkins, Nicholas of Cusa's Dialectical Mysticism: Text, Translation, and Interpretive Study of De Visione Dei, (Minneapolis, MN: Banning, 1985)
Dialectical Mysticism, tr. J Hopkins, (Minneapolis, MN: Banning, 1988)
De auctoritate praesidendi in concilio generali, tr. HL Bond et al., Church History 59, (1990), 19-34
De concordantia catholica (The Catholic Concordance), tr. P Sigmund, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, (Cambridge: CUP, 1991)
A Miscellany on Nicholas of Cusa, tr. J Hopkins, (Minneapolis, MN: Banning, 1994)
On Wisdom and Knowledge, tr. J Hopkins, (Minneapolis, MN: Banning, 1996)
Metaphysical Speculations, tr. J Hopkins, 2 vols, (Minneapolis, MN: Banning, 1997-2000) [Contains translations of: Vol 1: De apice theoria; Vol 2: De Coniecturis and De Ludo Globi]
Bond, H. Lawrence (ed.), Nicholas of Cusa: Selected Spiritual Writings, Classics of Western Spirituality, (New York: Paulist Press, 1997). ISBN 0-8091-3698-8 [Contains translations of On Learned Ignorance, Dialogue on the Hidden God, On Seeking God, On the Vision of God, and On the Summit of Contemplation.]
Hopkins, Jasper (ed.), Complete philosophical and theological treatises of Nicholas of Cusa, 2 vols., (Minneapolis: AJ Banning Press, 2001)
Izbicki, Thomas M., ed., Nicholas of Cusa, Writings on Church and Reform, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008).
^ abcdef(Inggris) John Longeway. 1999. "Nicholas of Cusa". In The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. Robert Audi, ed. 612-613. London: Cambridge University Press.
^ abcdefghijSimon Petrus L. Tjahjadi. 2004. Petualangan Intelektual. Yogyakarta: Kanisius. Hal. 158-162.
^English translation in De concordantia catholica (The Catholic Concordance), tr. P Sigmund, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, (Cambridge: CUP, 1991).
^ abcdEnglish translation in Bond, H. Lawrence (ed.), Nicholas of Cusa: Selected Spiritual Writings, Classics of Western Spirituality, (New York: Paulist Press, 1997).
^ abBernard McGinn, The Harvest of Mysticism, (2005), p435.
Bellitto, Christopher, Thoma M Izbicki and Gerald Christianson, eds, Introducing Nicholas of Cusa: A Guide to a Renaissance Man, (New York: Paulist Press, 2004).
Catà, Cesare, 'Perspicere Deum. Nicholas of Cusa and the European Art of Fifteenth Century', Viator 39 no. 1 (Spring 2008).
McGinn, Bernard, The Harvest of Mysticism, (2005), pp432–483.
Meuthen, Erich, Nicholas of Cusa: A Sketch for a Biography. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2010).
Miller, C. Lee, Reading Cusanus: Metaphor and Dialectic in a Conjectural Universe, (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2003).
Yamaki, Kazuhiko, ed., Nicholas of Cusa: A Medieval Thinker for the Modern Age, (Routledge, 2001).
Bahasa lain
Catà, Cesare, 'La Croce e l'Inconcepibile. Il pensiero di Nicola Cusano tra filosofia e predicazione', EUM, Macerata (2009).
D'Amico, Claudia, and Machetta, J., eds, 'El problema del conocimiento en Nicolás de Cusa: genealogía y proyección', Editorial Biblos, (2004).
Flasch, Kurt, Nikolaus von Kues: Geschichte einer Entwicklung, (Georg Olms Verlag: 1998).
Hoff, Johannes, Kontingenz, Berührung, Überschreitung. Zur philosophischen Propädeutik christlicher Mystik nach Nikolaus von Kues, (Alber: Freiburg/Br. 2007) [Contingency, Tangency, Transgression. A Philosophical Propaedeutics of Christian Mysticism subsequent to Nicholas of Cusa]
Cusanus-Portal (DFG-Project by the Institut fuer Cusanus-Forschung and the Center for Digital Humanities at the university of Trier with a digitized version of the ‘Opera Omnia’, the critical edition of the Latin texts from Nicholas of Cusa, published by the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, with the English translations of Jasper Hopkins, several German translations, a German encyclopedia and an international bibliography)
Jasper Hopkins, Ph.D. has produced English translations with some commentary of much of Nicholas's work. PDF versions are available at this site.
