Book Review: Caroline W Bynum, Dissimilar Similitudes: Devotional Objects in Late Medieval Europe (original) (raw)
opens the final part of the volume with an investigation of the impact of both Boethius and Nicholas of Cusa on the early French reform in thinkers such as the humanist Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples and Gerard Roussel. Roberta Giubilini then draws attention to a number of shared philosophical positions between Nicholas and the French linguist and cabbalist Guillaume Postel, with a specific focus on the docta ignorantia. Petr Pavlas examines the role of the book of nature as the "layman's bible" as well as the Bible in the thought of Nicholas, Raymond of Sabunde, and Jan Amos Comenius. Carefully tracing Nicholas's and Raymond's influence on Comenius, Pavlas concludes that because Comenius used the triadized book metaphor prior to his reading Sabundus, Nicholas's influence can be assumed to be the more important one. Simon G. Burton continues with Comenius but focuses on the influence of Nicholas's metaphysics on Comenius's pansophic vision. Jan Makovský explores the common ground between Nicholas and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, showing how Leibniz was inspired by Nicholas's concept of infinity and, by using a rationalized version of the approach of the coincidence of opposites, established a link between divine and human reason. Makovsky concludes that Leibniz's infinite confidence in reason implies both an infinite value of a continued dialogue and a continuous reform of science which itself leads toward "the horizon of the divine perfection" (481). Michael Edward Moore brings this excellent volume to a well-rounded conclusion by investigating Nicholas of Cusa's role in Ernst Cassirer's Renaissance cultural studies. Moore situates Cassirer's philosophical interest in Nicholas in the context of his theory of enduring cultural forms but also within the time of the cultural upheaval that was the Weimar Republic, reminding us that Nicholas as a thinker remains relevant beyond historical limits. The volume presents a very welcome and enlightening addition to the scholarly debate on Nicholas of Cusa in the context of (early) modernity and is highly recommended to anyone interested in Nicholas specifically and in reception studies more generally. The book's strength lies in how many of the authors employ careful conceptual comparisons that not only draw attention to the impact of Nicholas's thinking in his time and beyond but also shed light on philosophical and theological developments on a more comprehensive scale, by, for instance, showing how drawing on the same sources may produce very different philosophical and theological results. The goal of the editors to make Nicholas of Cusa somewhat less of a "forgotten presence" (to quote Stephan Meier-Oeser) has certainly been achieved.
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