The most famous work of Nicholas of Kuzan. According to most historians of philosophy, F. Bacon was the founder. F. Bacon's main working method is

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1. Philosophy is (indicate the most correct answer):

a) the dynamic process of questioning, searching for a person’s destiny;

2. The term “philosophy” means:

d) love of wisdom;

3. The subject of philosophy is (indicate the most correct answer):

d) universal in the “world-person” system;

4. Philosophy has the following functions:

d) all these functions combined.

5. Philosophy explains the world with the help of:

d) rational argumentation;

6. Philosophy - This:

a) worldview;

7. Answers to philosophical questions are sought in:

d) arguments and conclusions of the mind;

8. The main question of philosophy is (indicate the most correct answer):

a) the question of the relationship of consciousness to being, the ideal to the material;

9. The formulations of the main question of philosophy include (indicate all correct options):

b) what comes first: material or ideal (Engels)? c) is life worth living (Camus)? d) how to be happy (Socrates)?

10. To the Eternal philosophical issues include (check all correct options):

b) what is the essence of man? d) what is the meaning of life?

11. Philosophy is (indicate the most correct answer):

a) a reasonable understanding of the world;

12. A necessary feature of a philosophical worldview is:

d) abstractness;

13. A stable system of views on the world, beliefs, ideas, beliefs of a person that determine the choice of a certain life position, attitude towards the world and other people, - This:

c) worldview;

14. Establish the sequence of historical types of worldview:

b) mythology; d) religion. a) philosophy; c) science;

15. In their origins, philosophy and science relied on:

a) mythology;

16. In philosophy, myth is understood as (indicate the most correct answer):

d) a holistic, undivided comprehension by primitive man of the world and the phenomena in it, built on “werewolf” logic;

17. In this picture of the world, “natural” and “supernatural” do not differ from each other:

c) in mythological;

18. The relationship between philosophy and science is that:

c) philosophy and science are partially included in each other;

19. Main sections of philosophy (indicate all correct options):

a) ontology; d) axiology; f) anthropology; g) epistemology.

20. The doctrine of being as such. Branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental principles of existence:

d) ontology;

21. Philosophical doctrine of the universal laws of knowledge - This:

a) epistemology;

22. The central problem of ontology is:

c) the relationship between being and consciousness, material and ideal;

23. Axiology - this teaching:

a) about values, their origin and essence;

24. Materialistic directions recognize the following provisions (indicate all correct options):

a) the world consists of material bodies, each body of the smallest particles; c) matter is an objective reality; d) the attribute of matter is movement;

(2 Question) 2. Ancient philosophy

2. To what form of materialism can the teaching of Thales of Miletus be attributed:

d) spontaneous materialism.

3. Representatives of the Milesian school are called spontaneous materialists because they:

a) took material elements as the fundamental basis of the world;

4. About the teachings of this philosopher, a later author wrote:

“This cosmos, one and the same for everything that exists, was not created by any god or man, but it has always been, is and will be an eternally living fire, ignited in measures and extinguished in measures.”

d) Heraclitus.

5. The fragment “Everything flows, everything changes” expresses the essence:

a) dialectical thoughts of Heraclitus;

d) Heraclitus;

7. This ancient thinker first formulated the concept of “philosophy”:

a) Pythagoras;

8. The number in the Pythagorean school is:

b) the beginning of the world, identical to the thing;

9. According to Parmenides, we fall into error when we think:

a) non-existence;

10. The founder of ancient atomism is:

b) Democritus-Leucippus;

11. Democritus’ ontology is based on the principle:

a) the world consists of invisible, indivisible particles - atoms;

12. This ancient thinker considered “man the measure of all things”:

a) Protagoras;

13. Socrates said: “I know that I know nothing, but...”

d) others don’t know this either.

e) communication with the interlocutor in order to find the truth.

15. Idea, according to Plato:

b) immaterial, but intelligible;

16. True knowledge according to Plato is:

c) the soul’s recollection of ideas it saw in another world;

17. This ancient philosopher wrote: “ Since the soul is immortal, then there is nothing that it does not know; therefore, it is not surprising that she is able to remember what she previously knew. And since everything in nature is related to each other, and the soul has known everything, nothing prevents the one who remembers one thing, find everything else yourself: after all, to seek and learn - this is precisely what it means to remember.”

c) Plato;

18. Plato's "State" was:

c) a caste-type state, with a clear class division;

19. Plato in his “Republic” divided society into three classes:

d) philosophers, warriors, artisans;

20. According to Aristotle, every thing is:

c) unity of matter and form;

21. This ancient philosopher wrote:«... State - a product of natural development and that man is by nature - political being. He who lives by virtue of his nature, and not as a result of random circumstances, outside the state, is either a superman, or a creature underdeveloped in moral terms. ..»

a) Aristotle;

22. In their ethical concept, the Stoics put forward:

a) the ideal of a sage who dispassionately endures the blows of fate;

23. Determine which philosopher’s teachings the following principles belong to:

1. water; d) Thales; 2. apeiron; b) Anaximander; 3. fire; d) Heraclitus. 4. number; c) Pythagoras; 5. atoms; a) Democritus;

24. Determine in the concepts of which ancient philosophers the following categories play a dominant role:

1. Plato; b) idea; 2. Heraclitus; a) logos; 3. Aristotle; d) shape; 4. Democritus; e) atom; 5. Empedocles; f) love; g) hatred.

25. Establish the correspondence of the philosopher to one school or another:

1. Parmenides; b) Eleatic school; 2. Democritus; a) atomists; 3. Anaximander; c) Milesian school; 4. Plotinus; d) neoplatonism; 5. Pyrrho; d) skeptics.

26. Establish the correspondence of the philosopher to the philosophical direction:

1. materialism; b) Democritus; d) Epicurus; 2. idealism; a) Parmenides; d) Plato. c) Aristotle;

27. Match the teacher to the student:

1. Plato; b) Aristotle; 2. Socrates; d) Plato. 3. Aristotle; c) Alexander the Great; 4. Thales; a) Anaximander;

28. Establish the sequence of philosophical teachings of antiquity:

b) “all from water”; c) “number is the basis of everything”; a) “world of ideas”; d) “withholding judgment.”

29. Establish the sequence of philosophical schools of antiquity:

b) Milesian school; a) Pythagoreans; d) Academy; c) Lyceum; d) Neoplatonists.

4. Philosophy of the Renaissance and Modern Times

1. Most famous work Nicholas of Kuzan is called:

a) “On the cause, the beginning and the one”;

b) “On the dignity and growth of sciences”;

*c) “About learned ignorance”;

d) “On the infinity of the Universe and worlds”;

d) "On the greatness of the soul."

2. In his theory of knowledge, F. Bacon adhered to the concept:

a) absolute truth;

b) relative truth;

c) unattainable truth;

d) conventional truth;

*d) dual truth.

3. According to most historians of philosophy, F. Bacon was the founder of the European:

a) idealism and stoicism;

b) objectivism and skepticism;

*c) empiricism and materialism;

d) rationalism;

d) panmathematics.

4. F. Bacon's main working method is:

a) analysis;

b) synthesis;

c) deduction;

*d) induction;

d) dialectic.

5. Bacon attributed generally accepted systems of thought (syllogistics and scholasticism) to ghosts (idols):

a) kind;

b) caves;

c) market;

*d) theater.

6. The initial principle of Descartes’ philosophizing:

*a) doubt;

b) dialectics;

c) intuition;

d) insight;

d) logic.

7. Before declaring, “I think, therefore I am,” Descartes argued:

a) “I believe because it is absurd”;

*b) “everything must be doubted”;

c) “love moves the suns and luminaries”;

d) "knowledge" - force";

d) "Know yourself".

8. According to Descartes, extended substance and spiritual substance:

a) are closely related;

*b) exist independently of each other;

c) they are opposites and constantly fight among themselves;

d) exist separately, and the existence of one excludes the simultaneous existence of the other;

d) are an illusion of the psyche.

a) one substance - matter;

b) one substance with two attributes: time and space;

c) one substance with two attributes: thinking and extension;

*d) two independent substances - thinking and extension;

d) only the facts of sensory perception.

10. The main attribute of matter, according to Descartes, is:

a) divisibility;

*b) extent (prevalence);

c) eternity;

d) variability;

d) energy.

11. Descartes considered the main method of obtaining true and practically useful facts:

a) contemplative analysis;

b) empirical induction;

*c) rational deduction;

d) speculative synthesis;

d) dialectical method.

12. Whole line philosophical directions Developing the ideas of Descartes, in the history of philosophy are called:

*a) Cartesianism;

b) sensationalism;

c) realism;

d) deism;

d) pragmatism.

13. Spinoza used an unusual method of presentation in his Ethics:

a) logical;

b) empirical;

*c) geometric;

d) semantic;

d) dialectical.

14. The attributes of substance (nature), according to Spinoza, are:

a) external cause;

b) many finite things;

*c) thinking and extension;

d) impact and connection;

d) energy and information.

15. Based on the concept of the physical unity of the universe by J. Bruno suggested:

a) space is infinity, as an eternal uncreated being (God);

b) the infinity of space is a divine attribute, since the world was created by an infinite god;

*c) space is infinite, but surrounded by empty space (God);

d) space is empty space that surrounds God as its core;

d) the cosmos was created by God and is finite, God himself is infinite and constantly creates new worlds.

16. Philosophy of nature by J. Bruno:

a) deism;

b) creationism;

*c) pantheism;

d) dualism;

d) materialism.

17. He considered the state in the form of Leviathan:

a) Spinoza;

*b) Hobbes;

c) Descartes;

d) Bacon;

d) Nikolai Kuzansky.

18. According to Locke, the basis of all knowledge is:

*a) sensation;

b) idea;

c) thought;

d) word;

d) intuition.

19. This philosopher was the first to divide power into three types (judicial, legislative and executive):

a) Spinoza;

*b) Locke;

c) Descartes;

d) Bacon;

d) Nikolai Kuzansky.

20. The philosophy of the Enlightenment as a whole is characterized by:

*a) faith in human mind, knowledge and social progress;

b) exceptional religiosity;

c) theocentrism;

d) exceptional interest in problems of knowledge.

21. This philosopher directly identified man with machine:

a) Spinoza;

b) Locke;

*c) La Mettrie;

d) Bacon;

d) Nikolai Kuzansky.

22. Voltaire believed that religion arose when they met:

a) man and god;

b) god and devil;

c) god and prophet;

*d) a swindler and a fool.

23. The ideological leader, organizer and compiler of the first “Encyclopedia” was:

a) Spinoza;

*b) Diderot;

c) La Mettrie;

d) Bacon;

d) Nikolai Kuzansky.

24. Rousseau believed that the development of culture shapes human needs:

a) natural;

*b) artificial;

c) material;

d) spiritual;

e) social.

25. Establish the correspondence of the philosopher to the philosophical direction:

a in d 1 . empiricism;a) Bacon;

b d 2. rationalism; b) Descartes;

c) Locke;

d) Hobbes;

d) Spinoza.

26. Establish the sequence of occurrence of philosophical works:

1a) “On learned ignorance” Nikolai Kuzansky;

5b) “On the Social Contract” by Rousseau;

2c) “On the infinity of the Universe and worlds” by Bruno;

4d) “Ethics” by Spinoza;

3d) “New Atlantis” by Bacon.

27. Establish the correspondence of a philosophical treatise to one or another philosopher:

V 1 . “On learned ignorance”; a) Bacon;

d 2. “On the Social Contract”; b) Descartes;

b3. “Discourse on the Method”; c) Nikolai Kuzansky;

G 4 . "Leviathan"; d) Hobbes;

a5. “New Atlantis”;d) Rousseau.

A contemporary of many Italian humanists, Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) is one of the most profound philosophers of the Renaissance. He was from southern Germany (the town of Kuza), of completely humble origin. Nikolai, already in his school years, was influenced by mystics (“brothers common life"). At the University of Padua, in addition to the usual humanitarian education, which consisted of improvement in Latin and in studying Greek, Nikolai was interested in mathematics and astronomy. Later he had to choose a spiritual career. The young priest, who established contacts with Italian humanists, was captivated by their movement.

Perhaps, like no other philosopher of this era, Nicholas combined in his works and in his activities the culture of the Middle Ages and the energetically advancing culture of humanism. On the one hand, he is a very active hierarch catholic church, whom the humanist pope Nicholas V elevated to the rank of cardinal in 1448, on the other hand, an active participant in the circle of humanists that formed around this pope. Indicative of the atmosphere that reigned here a good relationship philosopher-cardinal with such a disturber of church peace as Lorenzo Valla. Greatest influence The Cusanian acquired it when his friend from his youth, Piccolomini, became Pope Pius II, and he himself actually became the second person in the Roman church hierarchy. Nikolai combined religious and administrative worries with productive literary activity. He wrote a number of philosophical works in Latin - in the genre of treatise, reflection, dialogue. He also has actual scientific works. Unlike the overwhelming majority of Italian humanist philosophers of his time, Cusanets was deeply interested in questions of mathematics and natural science, and his philosophical doctrine is incomprehensible outside of these interests. A prominent church minister, naturally, also wrote purely theological works (in particular, sermons). The philosophical content of Nicholas's works is often very difficult to separate from the theological. In this respect, he continued the medieval tradition with its mixture of theology and philosophy.

The most significant and famous of Cusanz’s works is the treatise “On Learned Ignorance” (“De docta ignorantia” - can be translated as “On Wise Ignorance”, “On Knowledgeable Ignorance”, 1440). Adjacent to it is another treatise - “On Assumptions” (no later than 1444). In 1450 Nicholas wrote four dialogues under common name"Simple." The first two of them are called “On Wisdom”, the third - “On the Mind”, the fourth - “On the Experience with Scales”. The title of these dialogues, as well as their content, attracts attention with its humanistic-democratic idea of ​​​​turning for true wisdom not to a representative of the guild of official scholarship, but to a person from the people who are not confused by this pseudo-learning.

As a thinker of the transitional era - the Middle Ages, transforming into the Renaissance - Nikolai Kuzansky demonstrates in his works various, often very contradictory, sides and facets of this era. As a mystic and contemplative, which he may have become already in his youth, he is an enemy of scholasticism, especially Thomistic, which led human thought into the dead ends of the knowledge of God. Nicholas, on the path of mysticism, strove for effective worship of God. The very titles of his works speak about this - “On the Hidden God”, “On the Search for God”, “On Sonship of God”, “On the Gift of the Father of Lights” (all of them created in 1445-1447), “On the Vision of God” (1453 ), having a purely speculative orientation. It is believed that after the appearance of “On Learned Ignorance” and “On Assumptions,” especially after 1450, when the dialogues of “The Simpleton” were written, the mystical moods of the philosopher-cardinal intensified, which was reflected in his works interpreting the concept of God in abstractly philosophically, - “On the possibility of being” (1460), “On the non-other” (1462), as well as in works where the author’s thoughts are clothed in an allegorical and symbolic form - “On beryl” (“Spiritual Glasses”, 1458 ), “On the hunt for wisdom” (1463), “On the game of ball” (1463), “On the pinnacle of contemplation” (1464).

Kuzanets was also an enemy of scholasticism as a representative of humanistic education, who paid great attention to natural scientific issues. Hence the powerful invasion of naturalistic considerations and ideas into the speculative and mystical constructions of Kusan. In various books on the history of philosophy, Nicholas of Cusa is usually characterized as a Platonist. Indeed, he has many references to Plato. But Cusan's Platonism should be understood more broadly, including Neoplatonism, which had a great influence on him even before the Florentine Platonists. Proclus is one of his main philosophical authorities. As is known, the Areopagitians also experienced the enormous influence of Neoplatonism (especially the same Proclus). However, Kuzan should not be considered only as a Platonist. For example, he highly valued the ideas of Pythagoreanism, before which the ideas of Platonism sometimes even receded into the background. In different contexts, Nikolai uses the ideas of other ancient philosophers and theologians - Augustine, Boethius, Socrates, Anaxagoras, the Stoics, and atomists.

Cusan's concept of God should be interpreted as pantheistic, despite the fact that in historical and philosophical literature there are frequent statements regarding the theistic nature of this concept. Theism lies at the basis of any monotheistic religion and insists not only on the personal-transcendent understanding of God and his free-willed creativity, but also on the omnipresence of this omnipotent principle. Pantheism undermines the personal-transcendent interpretation of God and insists on his impersonality and omnipresence. There is no hard, uncrossable boundary between theism and pantheism. It should also be borne in mind that theism and pantheism (as well as deism) have in common the idea of ​​a special, completely spiritual being - God, primary in relation to man, who cannot exist without such being.

Nikolai Kuzansky understood that the most infinite and extremely united God is not only and not so much the object of one or another positive religion - Christian, Muslim or Jewish, but rather an interreligious concept inherent in the faith of any people [see: “Scientific ignorance”], and the various names of God, especially pagan ones, were determined not so much by the signs of the creator as by the signs of his creations [see: Ibid. I, 25, 83].

main topic ontological problematics developed by Cusan is, on the one hand, the question of the relationship between the countless number of specific individual things and phenomena of the natural and human world and the divine absolute, and on the other hand, the question of God as the ultimate spiritual being, opposed to the world of finite bodily things, for if God is removed from creation, it will turn into non-existence and nothingness. [see: ibid. II, 3, 110]. But this traditional dualistic creationist idea is constantly interrupted by Nicholas with the thought of the unity of the infinite God and the world of finite things. “The existence of God in the world is nothing other than the existence of the world in God” [On Assumptions, II, 7, 107]. The second part of this statement indicates mystical pantheism (sometimes called panentheism), and the first indicates naturalistic pantheism. Due to the first of them, things and phenomena are only symbols of God, and due to the second, they are quite stable and are of interest in themselves. Moreover, often the same formulations can be regarded in both the first and second aspects, for example, the interpretation of the world as a “sensual God”. For Kuzantz, as a Renaissance philosopher who anticipated the birth of mathematical science, it became especially important to emphasize the presence in the world of the relationships of measure, number and weight. Considering that the divine art at the creation of the world consisted mainly in geometry, arithmetic and music, declaring that “the first image of things in the mind of the creator is number” [“On Assumptions”, II, 2, 9], without which nothing can be understood , nor create, Nicholas from a Platonist, as it were, becomes a Pythagorean, striving to replace ideas with numbers, attributing such a view to Augustine and Boethius.

Mathematics, according to Cusanz, is applicable even in matters of theology, in positive theology, for example, in likening the “blessed Trinity” to a triangle that has three right angles and is therefore infinite. Likewise, God himself can be compared to an endless circle. But Nicholas’s Pythagoreanism was expressed not only and not even so much in the mathematization of theological speculation. Claiming the enormous help of mathematics in understanding “various divine truths” [“Scientific Ignorance”, I, 11, 30], he not only anticipated mathematical natural science, but also took a certain step in this direction in the essay “On the Experiment with Scales.” The mathematical interpretation of existence was also reflected in the cosmology of Kuzan.

In the light of the above, it is clear why the intellectualization of the creative activity of God is connected by Cusan with a very fruitful problem of the relationship between nature and art. On the one hand, “art appears as a kind of imitation of nature” [“On Assumptions,” II, 12, 121]. But on the other hand, nature itself is considered as the result of the art of a divine master who creates everything with the help of arithmetic, geometry and music.

Kuzanets defended the objective-idealistic idea of ​​“development”, which went back to Neoplatonism - from the abstractly simple to the concretely complex, which were interpreted not as a reflection of some processes, but as absolute reality. At the same time, the mystical side of Cusan’s pantheism also manifested itself. Since God is not only at the beginning, but also at the end of all things, the return to him of the infinitely complex diversity of the world represents, as it were, its “collapse” (complicatio). However, with all the idealism and even mysticism of Nicholas’s vision of the world, it differs quite sharply from the scholastic-creationist one in its dynamism, reminiscent of ancient natural philosophical constructs. The idea of ​​a universal connection in nature was supplemented - albeit very modestly - by the thought of actual development, at least in organic nature. Yes, in the dark plant life intellectual life is hidden [see: “On Assumptions,” II, 10, 123]. vegetative power in flora sensing power in an animal and intellectual power in the human world are connected by virtue of a single substantial ability [see: “On the game of ball”, 38-41]. Therefore, a person is organic element in the doctrine of Nicholas of Cusa.

At the same time, the initial idea is man as a microcosm, which in its being reproduces ("contracts") the environment around it huge world nature. Kuzanets emphasized its “trisyllabic” composition: the “small world” is man himself; " Big world" - universe; "maximal world" - God, the divine absolute "Small is the similitude of the large, large is the similarity of the maximum" ["On the Ball Game", 42]. To understand the problem of man, it is not so much important that he - a similarity to the universe, for it was established already in antiquity, stated by some humanists and formed the basis of the Renaissance naturalistic interpretations of man. spiritual person it is much more important to understand his relationship to the “maximal world,” to God. Man, as the “second God” [“On Beryl”, 6, 7] is most likened to him by his mental activity and the corresponding creation of artificial forms. Human mind - a complex system abilities. The main ones are three: feeling (sensus), reason (ratio) and reason (intellectusk). The author of “Learned Ignorance” also uses the triadic formula regarding God to comprehend these basic cognitive abilities, [for he sees in reason a mediator between feeling and reason.

Kuzanets solved the problem of universals in the spirit of moderate realism, according to which the general exists objectively, although only in the things themselves. In terms of epistemology, genera and species are considered conceptually (i.e., moderately nominalistically) as expressed in words, for “names are given as a result of the movement of the mind” and turn out to be the result of its analyzing and generalizing activity. Without such activity it is impossible scientific knowledge, first of all, mathematical, the most reliable, for number arises as the “unfolding of the mind.” Nicholas’s rationalism is manifested not only in the exaltation of mathematics, but also in the corresponding assessment of logic, for “logic is nothing more than an art in which the power of reason is deployed. Therefore, those who are naturally strong in reason flourish in this art” [“O assumptions”, II, 2, 84]. If in sensations, as then in reason, the dependence of the human microcosm on the surrounding macrocosm is manifested, then the absolute independence and maximum activity of the mind as the intellectual focus of the microcosm is sometimes extended by Kuzan to the entire area of ​​the mind, which is an image of the divine mind with its ability of universal folding and unfolding of existence with all its attributes and properties [see. ibid., IV, 74]. Unlike feeling and reason, reason “comprehends only the universal, incorruptible and permanent” [“Scientific Ignorance”, III, 12, 259), thereby approaching the sphere of the infinite, absolute, divine.

But Kuzanets puts faith above knowledge, and not so much in its theological-fideistic, but in its philosophical-gnoseological sense. The author of Learned Ignorance agrees with all those teachers who “affirm that all understanding begins with faith.” In this case, there can be no talk of blind faith, devoid of any understanding of what a purely fideistic theological faith is). “Reason is guided by faith, and faith is revealed by reason.”

Cusan's teaching on being is dialectical; his teaching on knowledge also contains deep dialectics. The most important expression of such dynamism was his doctrine of opposites, which most forcefully emphasized the relativity of the constants of being. Being is permeated with a variety of opposites, the specific combination of which imparts certainty to certain things [see: “Scientific Ignorance”, II, 1, 95]. The living opposite is man himself, finite as a bodily being and infinite in the highest aspirations of his spirit to comprehend the divine absolute. But the most important ontological opposition is the divine being itself. As being found everywhere it is “everything”, and as being found nowhere it is “nothing of everything” [“Learned Ignorance”, I, 16, 43]. Kuzan repeatedly emphasizes that the utmost simplicity, the “foldedness” of the absolute puts it beyond all opposites and contradictions, which, when overcome, drown in it like drops in the ocean.

His famous doctrine of the coincidence of opposites (coincidentia oppositorum) is connected with the activity of this highest theoretical ability, which likens man to God. Well known mathematical examples, cited in “Scientific Ignorance” and other works. So, as the altitude increases endlessly isosceles triangle and, therefore, of an infinite decrease in the angle opposite the base, decreasing as this increases, the triangle will coincide with a straight line. Likewise, as its radius increases, the circle will increasingly coincide with its tangent. At infinity, straightness and curvature are generally indistinguishable, no matter what geometric figure we didn’t take it. [Cuzan’s teaching about the coincidence of opposites also develops into a deep dialectic of truth. Its essence lies in the position according to which truth - of course, on the human level - is inseparable from its opposite, from error. There is error to truth as shadow is to light. After all, even " upper world abounds in light, but is not devoid of darkness,” although it seems that the simplicity of light completely excludes it. “In lower world, on the contrary, darkness reigns, although he is not completely without light" ["On Assumptions", I, 9, 42].

A contemporary of many Italian humanists, Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) is one of the most profound philosophers of the Renaissance. He was from southern Germany (the town of Kuza), of completely humble origin. Nikolai already in his school years experienced the influence of mystics ("brothers of the common life"). At the University of Padua, in addition to the usual humanities education, which consisted of improvement in Latin and the study of Greek, Nikolai was interested in mathematics and astronomy. Later he had to choose a spiritual career. The young priest, who established contacts with Italian humanists, was captivated by their movement. Perhaps, like no other philosopher of this era, Nicholas combined in his works and in his activities the culture of the Middle Ages and the energetically advancing culture of humanism. On the one hand, he is a very active hierarch of the Catholic Church, whom the humanist Pope Nicholas V elevated to the rank of cardinal in 1448, on the other hand, he is an active participant in the circle of humanists that formed around this pope. The atmosphere that reigned here was indicative of the good relations between the philosopher-cardinal and such a disturber of church peace as Lorenzo Valla. Cusanus gained the greatest influence when his friend from his youth, Piccolomini, became Pope Pius II, and he himself actually became the second person in the Roman church hierarchy. Nikolai combined religious and administrative worries with productive literary activity. He wrote a number of philosophical works in Latin - in the genre of treatise, reflection, dialogue. He also has actual scientific works. Unlike the overwhelming majority of Italian humanist philosophers of his time, Cusanets was deeply interested in questions of mathematics and natural science, and his philosophical doctrine is incomprehensible outside of these interests. A prominent church minister, naturally, also wrote purely theological works (in particular, sermons). The philosophical content of Nicholas's works is often very difficult to separate from the theological. In this respect, he continued the medieval tradition with its mixture of theology and philosophy. The most significant and famous of Cusanz’s works is the treatise “On Learned Ignorance” (“De docta ignorantia” - can be translated as “On Wise Ignorance”, “On Knowledgeable Ignorance”, 1440). Adjacent to it is another treatise - “On Assumptions” (no later than 1444). In 1450, Nicholas wrote four dialogues under the general title “The Simpleton.” The first two of them are called “On Wisdom”, the third - “On the Mind”, the fourth - “On the Experience with Scales”. The title of these dialogues, as well as their content, attracts attention with its humanistic-democratic idea of ​​​​turning for true wisdom not to a representative of the guild of official scholarship, but to a person from the people who are not confused by this pseudo-learning. As a thinker of the transitional era - the Middle Ages, transforming into the Renaissance - Nikolai Kuzansky demonstrates in his works various, often very contradictory, sides and facets of this era. As a mystic and contemplative, which he may have become already in his youth, he is an enemy of scholasticism, especially Thomistic, which led human thought into the dead ends of the knowledge of God. Nicholas, on the path of mysticism, strove for effective worship of God. The very titles of his works speak about this - “On the Hidden God”, “On the Search for God”, “On Sonship of God”, “On the Gift of the Father of Lights” (all of them created in 1445-1447), “On the Vision of God” (1453 ), having a purely speculative orientation. It is believed that after the appearance of “On Learned Ignorance” and “On Assumptions,” especially after 1450, when the dialogues of “The Simpleton” were written, the mystical moods of the philosopher-cardinal intensified, which was reflected in his works interpreting the concept of God in abstractly philosophically, - “On the possibility of being” (1460), “On the non-other” (1462), as well as in works where the author’s thoughts are clothed in an allegorical and symbolic form - “On beryl” (“Spiritual Glasses”, 1458 ), “On the hunt for wisdom” (1463), “On the game of ball” (1463), “On the pinnacle of contemplation” (1464). Kuzanets was also an enemy of scholasticism as a representative of humanistic education, who paid great attention to natural scientific issues. Hence the powerful invasion of naturalistic considerations and ideas into the speculative and mystical constructions of Kusan. In various books on the history of philosophy, Nicholas of Cusa is usually characterized as a Platonist. Indeed, he has many references to Plato. But Cusan's Platonism should be understood more broadly, including Neoplatonism, which had a great influence on him even before the Florentine Platonists. Proclus is one of his main philosophical authorities. As is known, the Areopagitians also experienced the enormous influence of Neoplatonism (especially the same Proclus). However, Kuzan should not be considered only as a Platonist. For example, he highly valued the ideas of Pythagoreanism, before which the ideas of Platonism sometimes even receded into the background. In different contexts, Nikolai uses the ideas of other ancient philosophers and theologians - Augustine, Boethius, Socrates, Anaxagoras, the Stoics, and atomists. Cusan's concept of God should be interpreted as pantheistic, despite the fact that in historical and philosophical literature there are frequent statements regarding the theistic nature of this concept. Theism lies at the basis of any monotheistic religion and insists not only on the personal-transcendent understanding of God and his free-willed creativity, but also on the omnipresence of this omnipotent principle. Pantheism undermines the personal-transcendent interpretation of God and insists on his impersonality and omnipresence. There is no hard, uncrossable boundary between theism and pantheism. It should also be borne in mind that theism and pantheism (as well as deism) have in common the idea of ​​a special, completely spiritual being - God, primary in relation to man, who cannot exist without such being. Nikolai Kuzansky understood that the most infinite and extremely united God is not only and not so much the object of one or another positive religion - Christian, Muslim or Jewish, but rather an interreligious concept inherent in the faith of any people [see: “Scientific ignorance”], and the various names of God, especially pagan ones, were determined not so much by the signs of the creator as by the signs of his creations [see: Ibid. I, 25, 83]. The main theme of the ontological problematics developed by Cusan is, on the one hand, the question of the relationship between countless specific individual things and phenomena of the natural and human world and the divine absolute, and on the other hand, the question of God as the ultimate spiritual being, opposed to the world of finite physical ones. things, for if God is removed from creation, it will turn into non-existence and nothingness. [see: ibid. II, 3, 110]. But this traditional dualistic creationist idea is constantly interrupted by Nicholas with the thought of the unity of the infinite God and the world of finite things. “The existence of God in the world is nothing other than the existence of the world in God” [On Assumptions, II, 7, 107]. The second part of this statement indicates mystical pantheism (sometimes called panentheism), and the first indicates naturalistic pantheism. Due to the first of them, things and phenomena are only symbols of God, and due to the second, they are quite stable and are of interest in themselves. Moreover, often the same formulations can be regarded in both the first and second aspects, for example, the interpretation of the world as a “sensual God”. For Kuzantz, as a Renaissance philosopher who anticipated the birth of mathematical science, it became especially important to emphasize the presence in the world of the relationships of measure, number and weight. Considering that the divine art at the creation of the world consisted mainly in geometry, arithmetic and music, declaring that “the first image of things in the mind of the creator is number” [“On Assumptions”, II, 2, 9], without which nothing can be understood , nor create, Nicholas from a Platonist, as it were, becomes a Pythagorean, striving to replace ideas with numbers, attributing such a view to Augustine and Boethius. Mathematics, according to Cusanz, is applicable even in matters of theology, in positive theology, for example, in likening the “blessed Trinity” to a triangle that has three right angles and is therefore infinite. Likewise, God himself can be compared to an endless circle. But Nicholas’s Pythagoreanism was expressed not only and not even so much in the mathematization of theological speculation. Claiming the enormous help of mathematics in understanding “various divine truths” [“Scientific Ignorance”, I, 11, 30], he not only anticipated mathematical natural science, but also took a certain step in this direction in the essay “On the Experiment with Scales.” The mathematical interpretation of existence was also reflected in the cosmology of Kuzan. In the light of the above, it is clear why the intellectualization of the creative activity of God is connected by Cusan with a very fruitful problem of the relationship between nature and art. On the one hand, “art appears as a kind of imitation of nature” [“On Assumptions,” II, 12, 121]. But on the other hand, nature itself is considered as the result of the art of a divine master who creates everything with the help of arithmetic, geometry and music. Kuzanets defended the objective-idealistic idea of ​​“development”, which went back to Neoplatonism - from the abstractly simple to the concretely complex, which were interpreted not as a reflection of some processes, but as absolute reality. At the same time, the mystical side of Cusan’s pantheism also manifested itself. Since God is not only at the beginning, but also at the end of all things, the return to him of the infinitely complex diversity of the world is, as it were, its “collapse” (complicatio). However, with all the idealism and even mysticism of Nicholas’s vision of the world, it differs quite sharply from the scholastic-creationist one in its dynamism, reminiscent of ancient natural philosophical constructs. The idea of ​​a universal connection in nature was supplemented - albeit very modestly - by the thought of actual development, at least in organic nature. Thus, in the darkness of plant life hides intellectual life [see: “On Assumptions,” II, 10, 123]. vegetative force in the plant world, sentient force in the animal world, and intellectual force in the human world are connected by virtue of a single substantial ability [see: “On the game of ball,” 38-41]. Consequently, man is an organic element in the doctrine of Nicholas of Cusa. In this case, the initial idea is man as a microcosm, which in its being reproduces (“contracts”) the vast natural world surrounding it. Kuzanets emphasized its “trisyllabic” composition: the “small world” is man himself; "big world" - universe; “maximal world” - God, the divine absolute “Small is the similitude of the large, large is the similarity of the maximum” [“On the game of ball”, 42]. To understand the problem of man, it is not so much important that he is a semblance of the universe, for this was established already in antiquity, stated by some humanists, and lay at the basis of the Renaissance naturalistic interpretations of man. To understand a spiritual person, it is much more important to understand his relationship to the “maximal world,” to God. Man, as the “second God” [“On Beryl”, 6, 7] is most likened to him by his mental activity and the corresponding creation of artificial forms. The human mind is a complex system of abilities. The main ones are three: feeling (sensus), reason (ratio) and reason (intellectusk). The author of “Learned Ignorance” also uses the triadic formula regarding God to understand these basic cognitive abilities, [for he sees in reason a mediator between feeling and reason. The problem of universals Kuzanets decided in the spirit of moderate realism, according to which [the general exists objectively, although only in the things themselves. In terms of epistemology, genera and species are considered conceptualistically (i.e., moderately nominalistically) as expressed in words, for “names are given as a result of the movement of the mind” and turn out to be the result of his analyzing and generalizing activity. Without such activity, scientific knowledge is impossible, first of all mathematical, the most reliable, for number arises as the “unfolding of the mind." Nicholas's rationalism is manifested not only in the exaltation of mathematics, but also in the corresponding assessment of logic, for " Logic is nothing more than an art in which the power of reason is deployed. Therefore, those who are naturally strong in reason flourish in this art" ["On Assumptions", II, 2, 84]. If in sensations, as then in reason, the dependence of the human microcosm on the surrounding macrocosm is manifested, then absolute independence and the maximum activity of the mind as the intellectual focus of the microcosm is sometimes extended by Cusan to the entire area of ​​the mind, which is an image of the divine mind with its ability to universally fold and unfold existence with all its attributes and properties [see. ibid., IV, 74]. Unlike feeling and reason, reason “comprehends only the universal, incorruptible and permanent” [“Scientific Ignorance”, III, 12, 259), thereby approaching the sphere of the infinite, absolute, divine. But Kuzanets puts faith above knowledge, and not so much in its theological-fideistic, but in its philosophical-gnoseological sense. The author of Learned Ignorance agrees with all those teachers who “affirm that all understanding begins with faith.” In this case, there can be no talk of blind faith, devoid of any understanding of what a purely fideistic theological faith is). “Reason is guided by faith, and faith is revealed by reason.” Cusan's teaching on being is dialectical; his teaching on knowledge also contains deep dialectics. The most important expression of such dynamism was his doctrine of opposites, which most forcefully emphasized the relativity of the constants of being. Being is permeated with a variety of opposites, the specific combination of which imparts certainty to certain things [see: “Scientific Ignorance”, II, 1, 95]. The living opposite is man himself, finite as a bodily being and infinite in the highest aspirations of his spirit to comprehend the divine absolute. But the most important ontological opposition is the divine being itself. As being found everywhere it is “everything”, and as being found nowhere it is “nothing of everything” [“Learned Ignorance”, I, 16, 43]. Kuzan repeatedly emphasizes that the utmost simplicity, the “foldedness” of the absolute puts it beyond all opposites and contradictions, which, when overcome, drown in it like drops in the ocean. His famous doctrine of the coincidence of opposites (coincidentia oppositorum) is connected with the activity of this highest theoretical ability, which likens man to God. The mathematical examples given in “Scientific Ignorance” and other works are well known. Thus, as the height of an isosceles triangle increases infinitely and, consequently, the angle opposite the base decreases infinitely, decreasing as this increases, the triangle will coincide with a straight line. Likewise, as its radius increases, the circle will increasingly coincide with its tangent. In infinity, straightness and curvature are generally indistinguishable, no matter what geometric figure we take. [Cuzan’s teaching on the coincidence of opposites also develops into a deep dialectic of truth. Its essence lies in the position according to which truth - of course, on the human level - is inseparable from its opposite, from error. There is error to truth as shadow is to light. After all, even “the upper world abounds in light, but is not devoid of darkness,” although it seems that the simplicity of light completely excludes it. “In the lower world, on the contrary, darkness reigns, although it is not completely without light” [“On Assumptions”, I, 9, 42].

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