Development of Cusa's concept of principium-from research into his sermon drafts

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This study aims to trace the development of the concept of principium in Nicholas of Cusa's philosophy by research his sermon drafts. Most important his concept of principium is unity. In Cusa's thought, unity is not only the principium of the creation, but also the principium of human mind too. Though Cusa was a high rank clergyman, he preached by himself, so Cusa's sermon drafts actually comprise approximately one-third of his complete works. Therefore in this study, our decision was to focus on these drafts. Because, he had preached continuously, his sermon drafts would enable us to closely follow the chronological development of the concept of unity. In those sermon drafts, we can find that his concept of cooperative unity evolved into absolute unity, and he came to consider unity as the same as identity which he saw absolute identity. One of important conclusions of this study is that behind this delicate change of concept of unity lies a critical text-study of Proclus-latinus, and Proclus' concept of unity. For Proclus, unity transcends relation, therefore "imparticipabile", so it is not identity. But Cusa's concept of unity includes "quod parcipipatur", so as self-identity, it includes self-relation. Thereby, the unity includes the moment of" participabile", therefore it can become the principium of creation and human mind. Furthermore, from Cusa's sermon drafts, we found that he had preached commonly within the context of the salvation history. In this context, he used the concept of "habitus" which had used in the ethics or philosophical anthropology of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Therefore, as a conclusion of this study, we assert that Cusa's fundamental concept is absolute unity, and he got it from critical reading of Proclus-latius, but in his preaches-in there, he expressed his thought for his contemporaries-, in order to make audience to turn to the unity, he used this concept of unity in the framework of the concept of "habitus".