Nicholas of Cusa on Learned Ignorance: A Translation and an Appraisal of De Docta Ignorantia
Nicholas has not made his reader's task easy. For in spite of his
claim to have explained matters “as clearly as I could” and to have
avoided “all roughness of style,” many of his points escape even the
diligent reader, since the explanation for them is either too condensed,
or else too barbarously expressed, to be assuredly followed.
Like any important philosophical work, De Docta Ignorantia cannot be understood by merely being read: it must be studied. For its main themes are so profoundly innovative that their author's exposition of them could not have anticipated, and therefore taken measures to prevent, all the serious misunderstandings which were likely to arise.