Metaphysics of beauty in christian neoplatonism of Nicholas of Cusa

Annotation

From Antiquity to the Middle Ages beauty was explained using the concepts of Platonic and Aristotelian metaphysics. The pleasure of a beautiful thing was reduced to the pleasure of contemplating the perfection of form but this contemplation was intellectual. Sensuality was excluded from the understanding of beauty and beauty itself was raised to the level of pure spirit and rational knowledge. Nicholas of Cusa relied on this tradition but to some extent changes the point of view. It would be possible to express completely aesthetic experience in the language of philosophy only in the XVIII century. In the thought of Nicholas of Cusa we are faced with the fact that philosophical reflection on the concept of beauty lags behind the development of art. Despite the fact that people have long understood the difference between beautiful and tasteless they were not yet able to expand their complete understanding in the language of philosophy. Philosophers remained in the context of traditional metaphysics because it was the first science. They have not yet realized that the nature of beauty is a sui generis nature that requires separate consideration. The obstacle to the aesthetic thought of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was Aristotelian hylomorphism and the Neoplatonic understanding of causality in the finite being. As soon as these attitudes began to be abandoned, the path to the appearance of aesthetics would open.

Keywords

beauty, transcendental, metaphysics, unity, hylemorphism, Nicholas of Cusa, Meister Eckhart.

Literature

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