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Thinkers

Nicholas of Cusa

Renaissance Humanist · Europe · 1401 to 1464

German cardinal and thinker who held that human knowledge never reaches the infinite, so wisdom begins with knowing our ignorance.

What it is

Nicholas of Cusa (1401 to 1464) was a German churchman and philosopher. He was born at Kues, rose to be a cardinal and a bishop, and died at Todi in Italy. He is read today as a thinker who held that human knowledge of God and of the universe is always incomplete.

He is also known as a mathematician and a scholar who collected old manuscripts. In his book On Learned Ignorance he describes the learned person as one who is aware of their own ignorance.

The main ideas

  • Learned ignorance. The learned person is the one who is aware of their own ignorance, and human knowledge of God and of the universe stays incomplete.
  • Mathematics as symbol. He turned to geometry to make his points, for example with exercises about a circle and a straight line. Shapes became a way to picture what is hard to grasp.
  • Church order. Early on he argued that a general council of the Church stands above the pope, and later he sided with the papal side.
  • Looking ahead. He is credited with anticipating later ideas in astronomy, cosmology and experimental science.

What it looks like in practice

Picture someone who has argued with a relative for years about what the world ultimately is, and feels more certain with every round. Nicholas would ask them to stop and count what they cannot know. This is an illustration of his habit of mind, not a passage from his writing.

Books and moments

  • Council of Basel. He took part there and wrote On Catholic Concordance in 1433, supporting the authority of councils.
  • Siding with the pope. After the council split, he sided with the papal party.
  • On Learned Ignorance (1440). The book in which he describes the learned person as one aware of their own ignorance.
  • Bishop of Brixen (1450). He held the see of Brixen.
  • Manuscripts and a library. He found manuscripts of comedies by the Roman writer Plautus and left a library at his birthplace that is still housed there.
  • Death (1464). He died at Todi.

Questions and criticism

  • Changing sides. He first backed councils over the pope and later the pope. It is fair to ask whether this was a change of principle or of judgment about what would hold the Church together.
  • Ignorance as a starting point. If we cannot reach the infinite, it is fair to ask what makes some thoughts about it better than others.
  • His reach. It is fair to ask how far later thinkers drew on his ideas, and how far they reached similar ones on their own.

Close neighbours

The page on Giordano Bruno sits nearby, and so do the pages on Plotinus and Proclus, thinkers of the same Neoplatonic line.

Written by epchē in our own words, and checked against independent sources on 29 October 2026. The sources are listed below.

Who they connect to

Influenced

  • Giordano Bruno · He took up Nicholas of Cusa's thought of an infinite universe with no centre.

Influenced by

  • Meister Eckhart · He read the German mystics, and took up the thought that God is beyond all our concepts. (scholars disagree about this link)

Other Renaissance Humanist thinkers

Sources we used

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