De Visione Research Articles

Nicholas of Cusa’s Mystical Theology in Jean-Luc Marion’s Phenomenology of Affectivity

Abstract The main goal of this paper is to analyze Nicholas of Cusa’s reading on the dispute of Mystical Theology through Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology of givenness. To do this, first of all, we will address the analyses offered by Jean-Luc Marion on the problem of affectivity. Secondly, we examine Nicholas’ interpretation of Mystical Theology through the aenigma of the eicona dei in De visione dei (1453). Thirdly, we present Jean-Luc Marion’s interpretation of Cusanus eicona dei as an antecedent of his phenomenological conception of Icone as “saturated phenomenon.” Finally, we suggest that Cusanus eicona dei appears in Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology as a precedent of his strategy when approaching the field of affectivity. Both authors try to show an instance preceding the distinction between affectivity and rationality.

Elemental Optics: Nicholas of Cusa, Omnivoyance and the Aquatic Gaze

There has been much recent debate about the nature of the omnivoyant image that introduces Nicholas of Cusa’s De visione Dei. In this paper, I argue that Cusa’s concept of contraction and his ‘radical perspectivism’ lead us toward stretching the concept of omnivoyance beyond a simple dichotomy between a phenomenology of the image and a phenomenology of the icon. Instead of putting such emphasis on what is seen by the omnivoyant, we should think an omnivoyant optics starting from the material milieu from which it sees. To this end, I define the concept of omnivoyance through the concept of the elemental. Using both the concept of an element derived from Presocratic Ionian philosophy and recent French and American continental philosophy, I put these discourses into conversation with Cusa in several ways: (1) the way omnivoyance functions as a substratum of contracted seeing rather than as a transcendence, (2) its operation as a pure frontality without objectifiable aspects, and (3) the way in which omnivoyance implies not only a gaze that sees ‘all and each’ (Cusa’s formula for omnivoyance) but also a plurality of modes of vision. To help us understand this enlarged concept of omnivoyance, I use the example of animal vision, particularly the gaze of the whale. With respect to cetacean vision, I deploy Melville’s metaphysical speculations in Moby Dick as our primary guide.

A MÍSTICA ESPECULATIVA A PARTIR DA METÁFORA DO OLHAR EM DE VISIONE DEI DE NICOLAU DE CUSA (1401-1464)

Este artigo busca discutir acerca da experiência místico-especulativa que Nicolau de Cusa (1401-1464) propõe aos monges de Tegernsee para os conduzir à “sagrada obscuridade” ou “teologia mística”. O autor estava motivado pela discussão do século XV, sobre se se deveria entender a visão contemplativa de forma meramente afetiva ou intelectual. Esse debate envolvia dois grandes partidários de ambas perspectivas, respectivamente, Vicente de Aggsbach e Gerson. Após troca de cartas, Nicolau de Cusa envia aos monges beneditinos o De visione dei (1453) e um quadro que representa “a figura de alguém que tudo vê” denominado por ele “Ícone de Deus”. Destarte, a partir da experiência de olhar um quadro, cuja pintura traz a peculiaridade de o olhar pintado acompanhar aquele que o olha, Nicolau os leva a especular sobre a experiência do olhar de Deus que não abandona e acompanha todos e cada um. Logo, o caminho proposto no De visione dei é uma verdadeira “condução pela mão” (Manuductio) para que os monges, segundo as suas capacidades, alcancem a experiência mística: do olhar finito do quadro ao olhar infinito que é o próprio olhar de Deus. O artigo, portanto, dentro do âmbito da filosofia de Nicolau de Cusa mostra a via reflexiva que parte da experiência da finitude até a mais alta e profunda especulação que o homem pode vir a fazer: contemplar o divino.

The All‐Seeing: Fraternity and Vision of God in Nicholas of Cusa

Abstract“I am because you look upon me.” This phrase from Nicholas of Cusa’s De visione Dei sive De icona is enough to sum up the stakes and originality of this treatise sent in 1453 to the Tegernsee monks. “Speaking in order to see,” “seeing in order to speak,” and “hearing in order to believe” chart the different stages of this unique experience, at once aesthetic, philosophical, spiritual, and mystical. Whereas one might have believed that the mere call to transcendence would be enough to justify gathering together before God, the collective contemplation of Rogier van der Weyden’s painting by the community of monks instead allows one to see and even hear that “the revelation of the witness” (and thus “the revelation of the brother”) validates the truth of this communally shared experience. Reaching the “wall of paradise” does not so much mean “escaping through the wall” or “getting over the wall” as it does “inhabiting the boundary” where opposites “coincide” and man and God meet within a human community.

In a Mirror and an Enigma: Nicholas of Cusa’s De Visione Dei and the Milieu of Vision

Nicholas of Cusa’s deployment of an omnivoyant image in the De visione Dei has been said to deconstruct Leon Battista Alberti’s mathematical determination of space in single-point linear perspective. While there has been some debate over whether the omnivoyant functions like a medieval icon or instead like a Renaissance painting, what has been neglected is a more careful analysis of what underlies the very structure of omnivoyance, namely the milieu from which its contradictions and paradoxes emerge. In this article, I will show how thinking the milieu of vision, implicit in Cusa’s optics, lets us overcome any overly simple binaries in these debates and deepen our understanding of the meaning of omnivoyance.

La dimensión simbólica del arte en Nicolás de Cusa

The article begins by placing Nicholas of Cusa's ideas in the context of Mysticism, whilst, at the same time, establishing the continuing actuality of the topic. After a short review of the concept of art as an imitation of nature through Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the second part of the essay deals with the originality of the Germán Cardinal's development of the concept of "imitatio" and the relation he posits between art and nature. The third part explores some significant examples of the role played by art and its symbolic use in his writing, with particular attention to the icón of the allseeing eye in De visione Dei and to play in De ludo globi.

Freie Selbst-Wahl in Gott

In his mystical treatise “de visione dei” (1453) Nicholas of Cusa develops a fascinating ‘vision’ of human freedom and self realization in relation to a God looking creatively at man and waiting for his decision. Modern psychoanalysis is able to retrace in a convincing way the relational turn in this experimental mystic of freedom thus showing the up-to-dateness of Nicolas’ thinking.

Book Review: Partakers of the Divine: Contemplation and the Practice of Philosophy

Partakers of the Divine: Contemplation and the Practice of Philosophy. By Jacob Holsinger Sherman. Emerging Scholars. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2014. xiii + 283 pp. $39.00 (paper).In this provocative and erudite study, Jacob Sherman seeks to recover ancient and medieval Christian contemplative philosophy. In contrast to mainstream modern philosophical methodologies, Christian contemplative philosophy integrates intellectual theory with a rich praxis of contemplation, of theoria. Theoria involves delight and self-transformation in the presence of the divine and includes the whole life of passionate devotion, prayer, study, devotion, and charity. Contemplative philosophy affirms the intellect, the mutual transformation of both and reason. As Nicholas of Cusa declared in the fifteenth century, The mind without cannot understand; the mind without intelligence cannot love (p. 49). Ultimately, Sherman poses a deeply significant question: Is such a holistic union of philosophy and contemplation, of thinking and thanking (p. ix) viable in our present philosophical and theological world (pp. 32-33)?In the introduction, Sherman traces the historical roots of contemplative philosophy in both ancient pagan and Christian philosophy. Of crucial importance to his analysis is the impact of the Christian doctrines of the Incarnation and Resurrection on both the path and the goal of the contemplative mind. Following 2 Peter 1:4, ancient church fathers such as Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Athanasius, and Augustine revolutionized the Platonic vision of ascent by acknowledging that theosis, or participation in the divine nature, is possible only because of the transforming power of divine grace. In the words of Athanasius, The Son of became human in order that we might become God (p. 16). For Christian thinkers in this contemplative tradition, the intellectual pursuit of wisdom, transformed and enriched by divine grace and contemplative practices, is the culmination of the philosophical life, not its elimination.In chapter 1, Sherman examines forms of contemporary philosophy of religion that, for all their insight, fail to achieve the richness and depth of the contemplative philosophical tradition. He considers, among other contributions, the work of the analytic philosopher William Alston and that of the continental thinker Jean-Luc Marion. While affirming Alston s rigor and insight in defending the rationality of belief in God, Sherman argues that Alston overlooks the role of contemplative practices in transforming our most basic philosophical intuitions and beliefs. Sherman then offers a sensitive and probing critique of the phenomenological theology of Marion. Unfortunately, given Marions axiomatic conviction of the death of all metaphysics, his theology, saturated with a mysticism of ineffability, lacks any coherent, even approximate language or clarity with which to speak of or yearn to commune with a personal God. In their veiy different ways, argues Sherman, Alston and Marion provide us with works of elegance and brilliance that fail to understand the holistic nature of the adorative intellect and to appreciate its superior philosophical potential.By way of contrast, chapters 2 and 3 present two compelling examples of contemplative philosophy, Anselm s Proslogion and Nicholas of Cusas De Visione Dei. Sherman argues brilliantly that the fundamental argumentum of the Proslogion is not merely an intellectual construction that hinges on the much-debated ontological argument. …

Media Archaeology, Cultural Techniques, and the Middle Ages: An Approach to the Study of Media before the Media

This article surveys recent work in media archaeology, explicates the related theory of cultural techniques, and considers the utility of these recent developments in new German media theory to the analysis of medieval and early modern mediality. In doing so, the article also attends to disciplinary similarities between media studies and medieval and early modern studies. The aim of the article is neither to suggest a hybridization of these fields nor to systematize the approaches of media archaeology and the study of cultural techniques, but rather to highlight productive points of contact, contention, and possible exchange, and to indicate avenues for future research on insufficiently studied topics in medieval and early modern mediality. As a point of reference for this theoretical overview, the article focuses on Nicholas of Cusa’s treatise On the Vision of God (De visione Dei, 1453) and mentions other examples from medieval German literature and culture where relevant.

Il De Anima di Aristotele e la Rudis Expositio Aliquorum: Una Nota sull’ “Antitomismo” di Fine XIII Secolo

In his De visione beatifica Dietrich of Freiberg criticizes a rude interpretation which some authors (rudis expositio aliquorum) gave on Aristotle’s concept of “nobility,” concerning a passage of De anima’s book III. Since De visione is considered one of the most antithomistic writings of Dietrich of Freiberg, Thomas Aquinas and his followers are usually regarded as the main polemical objective of the German Dominican theologian. However, as he does not explicitly quote Thomas, it is plausible that the expression rudis expositio is related to a broader interpretative context. Starting from these considerations, the author proposes an innovative solution to the problem. In so doing, he introduces a new approach to categories such as “thomism” and “antithomism.”

Cusanus und die Kunst

Although Nicholas of Cusa has not developed a theory of aesthetics‚ he frequently uses examples from the domain of art, especially from the Flemish ars nova which he knew very well. His doctrine of the image has its basis in the idea of man as image or mirror of the divine archetype. As a consequence Cusa tries to think of God using images rather than rational concepts, because the image represents the common basis between God and the human mind. In his ‘De visione Dei’‚ Cusa analyzes human perspectivity and the resulting capacity of human vision. This relates him to Leon Battista Alberti. One highlight in the influence and the fascination of Cusa’s theory of vision for the art of the Renaissance is the celebrated self-portrait of Albrecht Dürer (1500). The essay focuses on the ‘crucifixion of Benediktbeuern’, by an unknown artist but probably commissioned by someone within the milieu of Nicolas of Cusa. In this painting the spectator has the sort of active role Cusa describes in his writings, when he speaks of the cognition of God as a relation between seeing and being seen.

The Second-Person Perspective in the Preface of Nicholas of Cusa's De Visione Dei

In De visione Dei’s preface, a multidimensional, embodied experience of the second-person perspective becomes the medium by which Nicholas of Cusa’s audience, the benedictine brothers of Tegernsee, receive answers to questions regarding whether and in what sense mystical theology’s divine term is an object of contemplation, and whether union with God is a matter of knowledge or love. The experience of joint attention that is described in this text is enigmatic (paradoxical, resisting objectification), dynamic (enactive, participatory), integrative (cognitive and affective), and transformative (self- creative). As such, it instantiates the coincidentia oppositorum and docta ignorantia which, for Cusa, alone can give rise to a vision of the infinite.

The Vision of Piers Plowman, Said to be Wrote by Chaucer:

The Vision of Piers Plowman, Said to be Wrote by Chaucer:

Omnivoyance and Omnipresence. Word and Vision According to Nicholas of Cusa and Jan van Eyck

In his De visione Dei, Nicholas of Cusa addresses two aspects of divine vision: my desire to see God and God’s capacity to see me. The latter aspect is distinguished by absolute power: God’s gaze is all-seeing. To explain this peculiar power Cusa introduces what he calls the figure of an ‘omnivoyant’. This is a portrait with its eyes turned towards the spectator so that the gaze of the depicted person appears to follow the spectator. This paper shows how this optical effect determined the choice of the full-face view as the characteristic way to represent the divine in Renaissance painting, and how inscriptions on the frames of a series of portraits of Christ attributed to Jan van Eyck reveal that the use of this effect was deliberate and in accordance with theological doctrine.

Reflexões sobre a trindade como expressão do amor em Nicolau de Cusa

Procuramos, neste artigo, apresentar a reflexão de Nicolau de Cusa sobre a Trindade, em dois dos seus textos: De coniecturis e De visione dei. Nesses dois livros, a Trindade recebe uma série de outras designações diferentes daquelas que aparecem nas citações bíblicas ou, como ele próprio afirma, diferentes das usadas pelos nossos doutores. Nesse sentido, objetivamos mostrar, também, que as expressões da Trindade podem ser lidas como expressões do amor no pensamento do filósofo alemão.

De Visione, Voce et Auditu

This work reviews the literature concerning the life and scientific contributions of Hieronymous Fabricius (1533-1619). We also analyze the translated Latin text that focuses on the middle ear muscles from a first edition of Fabricius' book entitled 'De Visione, Voce et Auditu' (The Vision, Voice and Hearing, 1600). Hieronymous Fabricius was one of the first scientists to introduce structure-function relationships in anatomic research. Better known for his descriptions of venous valves and human fetal development, his major contribution to otology was his theory on tensor tympani (TT) function. The TT is 1 of 2 middle ear muscles whose function has undergone a long period of speculation since its discovery by Vesalius (1514-1564) and description by Eustachius (1510-1574). Fabricius' theory of TT physiology was described in his treatise 'De Visione, Voce et Auditu' (1600). He wrote that the TT "protected" the tympanic membrane and helped in middle ear ventilation. In the 20th century, the development of the acoustic impedance measuring bridge by Otto Metz (1905-1993) allowed for the first objective measurements of middle ear function. Experiments on human subjects with various ear pathologies confirmed that the stapedius was the dominant sound evoked middle ear muscle. However, Fabricius' original theory on the TT's role in middle ear ventilation persists to this day based on recent physiologic, embryologic, and histologic studies. Hieronymous Fabricius was a pioneer in approaching anatomy from a structure-function relationship, and was an active proponent for maximizing the learning environment for students. Fabricius' writings provided the foundation for contemporary theories on the role of the TT, and he proposed those ideas during an era when great strides were being made to increase our understanding of ear anatomy and physiology.

Book Review: Oresme on Optics, Nicole Oresme's De Visione Stellarum (On Seeing the Stars): A Critical Edition of Oresme's Treatise on Optics and Atmospheric Refraction, with an Introduction, Commentary, and English Translation

Book Review: Oresme on Optics, Nicole Oresme's De Visione Stellarum (On Seeing the Stars): A Critical Edition of Oresme's Treatise on Optics and Atmospheric Refraction, with an Introduction, Commentary, and English Translation

La metáfora del mirar en Nicolás de Cusa

At the beginning of De Visione Dei, Nicholas of Cusa puts us before an icon of the divine glance and invites us to an experimentation – initially surrounded by the metaphorical reflection – of the mystic contemplation. Working with the metaphor of the glance, the Cusano leaves us before the Creator’s look and the creature’s look. In the De Visione Dei, the divine look is creator and lover. The God’s look sees, creates and loves. This way, the present work will look for to meditate on the importance of the glance, seeking in the De Visione Dei a way to relate the multiplicity of the created look with the unit of the creator look.

Iulius Casserius (1552-1616): the self-made anatomist of Padua's golden age.

Giulio Cesare Casseri (1552– 1616), whose name was Latinized into Iulius Casserius, was born in Piacenza; therefore, the nickname Piacentino (Placentinus) was often used. According to Sterzi (1910), who based his claim on a statement contained in Casserius’s will, his date of birth was around 1552. It should be noted, however, that although most modern authors accept this date (Roberts and Tomlinson, 1992; Premuda, 1993), some (Singer, 1957) still report 1561 as his birth date on the basis of the inscription (Fig. 1) appearing on the portrait published in Casserius’s work De Vocis Auditusque organis that ascribes to the author the age of 39 years. According to most of his early biographers (Tomasini, 1630; Ghilini, 1647; Papadopoli, 1726), Casserius’s family was very poor and the young Iulius, perhaps as the servant of some student (Sterzi, 1910), moved to Padua, the city that shared with Bologna the reputation of being the seat of Italy’s most illustrious university. He soon assumed the job of servant in the house of the famed Gerolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente (Fabricius, 1533– 1619) (Fig. 2), Public Lecturer of Anatomy and Surgery (Tomasini, 1630; Ghilini, 1647). As Tomasini (1630) reports, “from a servant he became first Fabricius’s auditor, then instructor and brilliant disciple.” We do not know when Casserius matriculated in the School of Medicine of the Universita Artista. As mentioned several times in his works, Casserius, in addition to Fabricius, had the well-known physician Gerolamo Mercuriale (Mercurialis) as a teacher and mentor, who held the chair of Clinical Medicine of Padua in the years 1569–1587. The precise date he obtained his degree in medicine and philosophy is unknown, because the official records are missing from 1580 to 1587; a likely date is ca.1580 (Sterzi, 1910; De Ferrari, 1978; Premuda, 1993). After the award of his degree, Casserius, in addition to giving private lectures on anatomy to the students of the Universita Artista and working as Fabricius’s preparator, started a practice as physician and surgeon in Padua that was very successful (Tomasini, 1630). In 1584, Casserius’s reputation was already so great that he took Fabricius’s place as member of the board of examiners for the finals in surgery. These examinations, held in private houses in the presence of the Rector of the University, conferred the license to practice surgery. The profession of surgery was considered in those days as a minor branch of Medicine and the surgeon had to take an oath that he would not involve himself in the treatment of serious diseases, but would call a licensed physician whenever the patient was in real danger.

The Icon and the Wall: Visio and Ratio in Nicholas of Cusa’s De visione Dei

The Icon and the Wall: Visio and Ratio in Nicholas of Cusa’s De visione Dei