American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

Volume 86, Issue 2, Spring 2012

Nicholas of Cusa Between the Middle Ages and Modernity
The Historiographical Positions Behind the Discussion

From the outset of scholarly research on Cusanus, the question concerning the historical status of his original philosophy has been a constant issue in the secondary literature. One continuously encounters the question of whether he is a medieval or a modern thinker, with a number of conflicting interpretations. These viewpoints are, in many cases, less related to concrete historical arguments than to general considerations regarding what it is meant by “medieval” or “modern” from a theoretical point of view. Accordingly, scholarship on Cusanus’s position in the history of ideas has been strongly influenced by the unconscious historiographical attitude of his interpreters.