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Aztec civilization
Aztec society
Nahuatl language
Religion · Mythology · Philosophy · Calendars
Human sacrifice · Medicine
Aztec history
Aztlán · Codices · Warfare
Aztec Triple Alliance
Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire
Fall of Tenochtitlan · La Noche Triste
Montezuma II · Hernán Cortés
v t e

Aztec philosophy was the school of philosophy developed by the Aztec Empire. The Aztecs had a well-developed school of philosophy, perhaps the most developed in the Americas and in many ways comparable to Greek philosophy, even amassing more texts than the ancient Greeks.^[1] Aztec philosophy focused on dualism, monism, and aesthetics, and Aztec philosophers attempted to answer the main Aztec philosophical question of how to gain stability and balance in an ephemeral world.

Beliefs[link]

Aztec philosophy saw the concept of teotl as a fundamental unity that underlies the entire universe. Teotl forms, shapes, and is all things. Even things in opposition—light and dark, life and death—were seen as expressions of the same unity, teotl. The belief in a unity with dualistic expressions compares with similar dialectical monist ideas in both Western and Eastern philosophies.^[2]

Relation to Aztec religion[link]

Aztec priests had a panentheistic view of religion but the popular Aztec religion maintained polytheism. Priests saw the different gods as aspects of the singular and transcendent unity of teotl but the masses were allowed to practice polytheism without understanding the true, unified nature of the Aztec gods.^[2]

Moral beliefs and aesthetics[link]

Aztec philosophers focused on morality as establishing balance. The world was seen as constantly shifting with the ever-changing teotl. Morality focused on finding the path to living a balanced life, which would provide stability in the shifting world.^[2]

Aztec philosophy saw the arts as a way to express the true nature of teotl.^[2] Art was considered to be good if it in some way brought about a better understanding of teotl.^[2] Aztec poetry was closely tied to philosophy and often used to express philosophic concepts.^[2][3] Below is an example of such a poem, translated from an old Aztec language known as Nahuatl:

No one comes on this earth to stay
Our bodies are like rose trees -
They grow petals then wither and die.
But our hearts are like grass in the springtime,
They live on and forever grow green again.

External links[link]

• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Aztec philosophy -- by James Maffie

References[link]

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (October 2010)

Dallion Priest, better known as Mad Lion, is a dancehall, ragga musician and rapper.^[1] He frequently collaborates with fellow hip hop artist KRS-One — most recently on a DVD promoting the Temple of Hiphop. The recipient of the 1994 Source award as Reggae Artist of the Year, he has inspired similar-sounding recordings by such artists as Ini Kamoze, Capleton, and Rayvon.

Biography[link]

Priest was born in London.^[1] Shortly after moving to Brooklyn, New York, he met reggae performer Super Cat at Super Power Records. At Super Cat's suggestion, he adopted his professional name, an acronym for Musical Assassin Delivering Lyrical Intelligence Over Nations.^[1] He blended ragga and hip-hop, and went on to work with KRS-One, with whom he worked throughout the 1990s.^[1] His earliest success came in the mid-1980s when he applied his hip hop rhythms to Shabba Ranks' hit single "Jam". His début single "Shoot to Kill" was successful in New York and he reached a wider audience with "Take It Easy", which became the title track of his début album in 1994.^[1] He contributed to Salt-N-Pepa's 1997 album Brand New. In 1997 he topped the US reggae chart with "Carpenter".^[1]

He also appeared in the music video for Craig Mack feat. Notorious B.I.G., Rampage, LL Cool J and Busta Rhymes - "Flava In Ya Ear".

Mad Lion's other collaborative projects consist of working with Puerto Rican producers DJ Playero, DJ Tony Touch, DJ Nico Canada & other Puerto Rican Reggaeton artists that were flourishing around 1996. Mad Lion was featured on a track in which he did a duet with Puerto Rican Reggaeton artist Mexicano 777 on the track titled "Guerreros" which was a Dancehall fused Hip-Hop track that was featured on the "Boricua Guerrero: First Combat" album produced by DJ Playero & DJ Nico Canada. Mad Lion also collaborated with Puerto Rican Reggaeton artist Rey Pirin on the track titled "Guerrillero Borincano" which was a gritty Hip-Hop track that was also featured on "Boricua Guerrero: First Combat". Not being the only Jamaican Dancehall artist to be featured on "Boricua Guerrero: First Combat", Mad Lion was joined by Jahdan & the Black Hearted Skavengerz who did a solo on a Reggaeton riddim titled "Many Many More", & the duo Curly Valentino & Demos Demarco made an appearance on the Hip-Hop track titled "Razor Sharp" with Mexicano 777. Mad Lion soon lent his rapping skills to that of the DJ Tony Touch & DJ Nico Canada produced mixtape titled "Guatauba", where he laid down a freestyle on a Reggaeton riddim. Again, Mad Lion was joined by other Jamaican Dancehall artists such as Mad Cobra, who did a freestyle on a Hip-Hop riddim, & The Black Hearted Skavengerz appeared doing a freestyle on a Reggaeton riddim.

Discography[link]

• Take It Easy (1994), Nervous
• Real Ting (1994), Nervous
• Real Lover (1995), VP
• Ghetto Gold and Platinum Respect (1997), Nervous
• Predatah Or Prey (2001), Warner Bros

References[link]

Nicholas of Cusa

Nicholas of Cusa, by Master of the Life of the Virgin
Other names	"Nicolaus Chrypffs", "Nicholas of Kues", "Nicolaus Cusanus"
Born	1401 Kues
Died	August 11, 1464 Todi, Umbria
Era	Medieval philosophy, Renaissance philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
Influenced by Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoreanism, Meister Eckhart, Pseudo-Dionysius, Proclus, Plotinus, Johannes Scottus Eriugena, Ramon Llull
Influenced Giordano Bruno, Kepler, Pico della Mirandola, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel

Nicholas of Kues (1401 – August 11, 1464), also referred to as Nicolaus Cusanus and Nicholas of Cusa, was a cardinal of the Catholic Church from Germany (Holy Roman Empire), a philosopher, theologian, jurist, mathematician, and an astronomer. He is widely considered one of the great geniuses and polymaths of the 15th century. He is today recognized for significant spiritual, scientific and political contributions in European history, notable examples of which include his mystical or spiritual writings on 'learned ignorance' (and mathematical ideas expressed in related essays), as well as his participation in power struggles between Rome and the German states of the Holy Roman Empire.

Biography[link]

Nicholas of Cusa or Kues (Latinized as "Cusa") was the second of four children of Johan Krebs (or Cryfftz) and Katherina Roemer. His father was "a prosperous boat owner and ferryman."^[1] He entered the University of Heidelberg in 1416 as "a cleric of the diocese of Trier" studying the liberal arts. He then received his doctorate in Canon law from the University of Padua in 1423. Afterwards, he entered the University of Cologne in 1425 as "a doctor of canon law" which it appears he both taught and practiced there. Following this brief period in Cologne, he became secretary to Otto of Ziegenhain, the Archbishop of Trier, and represented him in Rome in 1427. After the death of Otto, during the period when the archbishopric of Trier was contested by opposing parties, he attended the Council of Basel (1431–49), representing Ulrich von Manderscheid, one of the claimants.^[2]

While present at the council, Nicholas wrote De concordantia catholica, a synthesis of ideas on church and empire balancing hierarchy with consent. This work remained useful to critics of the papacy long after Nicholas left Basel.^[3] Nicholas was close to Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini, who had tried to reconcile pope and council, combining reform and hierarchic order. Nicholas supported transfer of the council to Italy to meet with the Greeks, who needed aid against the Ottoman Turks. He supported Pope Eugenius IV in his effort to bring the Eastern churches into union with the Western at such a "council of union." While returning from a mission to Constantinople to persuade the Greeks to attend the Council of Florence, Nicholas had a shipboard experience that led to his writing thereafter on metaphysical topics. Nicholas then represented the pope in Germany, becoming known as the Hercules of the Eugenian cause.^[4]

After a successful career as a papal envoy, he was made a theologian by Pope Nicholas V in 1448 or 1449, and was named Bishop of Brixen in 1450. His role as papal legate to the German lands included wide travels. His local councils enacted reforms, many of which were not successful. Pope Nicholas canceled some of Nicholas' decrees, and the effort to discourage pilgrimages to venerate the bleeding hosts of Wilsnack (the so-called Holy Blood of Wilsnack) was unsuccessful. His work as bishop – trying to impose reforms and reclaim lost diocesan revenues – was opposed by Duke Sigismund of Austria. The duke imprisoned Nicholas in 1460, for which Pope Pius II excommunicated Sigismund and laid an interdict on his lands. Nicholas of Cusa was never able to return to his bishopric, however. Sigmund's capitulation in 1464 came a few days after Nicholas's death at Todi in Umbria.^[5]

Tomb in S.Pietro in Vincoli, Rome, with the relief "Cardinal Nicholas before St Peter" by Andrea Bregno

Upon his death, his body was interred in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome, but was later lost. His monument, with a sculpted image of the cardinal, remains. In accordance with his wishes, his heart rests within the chapel altar at the Cusanusstift in Kues. To this charitable institution that he had founded he bequeathed his entire inheritance: it still stands, and serves the purpose Nicholas intended for it, as a home for the aged. The Cusanusstift houses also many of his manuscripts.[1]

Influence[link]

Philosophy[link]

Nicholas of Cusa was noted for his deeply mystical writings about Christianity, particularly on the possibility of knowing God with the divine human mind — not possible through mere human means — via "learned ignorance". Cusanus wrote of the enfolding of creation in God and their unfolding in creation. He was suspected by some of holding pantheistic beliefs, but his writings were never accused of being heretical.^[6] Nicholas also wrote in De coniecturis about using conjectures or surmises to rise to better understanding of the truth. The individual might rise above mere reason to the vision of the intellect, but the same person might fall back from such vision.

Most of his mathematical ideas can be found in his essays, De Docta Ignorantia (Of Learned Ignorance), De Visione Dei (On the Vision of God) and On Conjectures. He also wrote on squaring the circle in his mathematical treatises.

Theologically, Nicholas anticipated the profound implications of Reformed teaching on the harrowing of Hell (Sermon on Psalm 30:11), followed by Pico della Mirandola, who similarly explained the descensus in terms of Christ’s agony.

Nicholas was widely read, and his works were published in the sixteenth century in both Paris and Basel. Sixteenth century French scholars, including Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples and Charles de Bovelles cited him. Lefèvre even edited the Paris 1514 Opera.^[7] Nonetheless, there was no Cusan school. In later centuries, Giordano Bruno quoted him; and some thinkers, like Gottfried Leibniz, were thought to have been influenced by him.^[8] Neo-Kantian scholars began studying Nicholas in the nineteenth century, and new editions were begun by the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften in the 1930s and published by Felix Meiner Verlag [2].^[9] Societies and centers dedicated to Cusanus can be found in Argentina, Japan, Germany, Italy and the United States.

Science[link]

Nicholas is also considered by many to be a genius ahead of his time in the field of science. Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei and Giordano Bruno were all aware of the writings of Cusanus as was Johannes Kepler (who called Cusanus 'divinely inspired' in the first paragraph of his first published work). Predating Kepler, Cusanus said that no perfect circle can exist in the universe (opposing the Aristotelean model, and also Copernicus' later assumption of circular orbits), thus opening the possibility for Kepler's model featuring elliptical orbits of the planets around the Sun. He also influenced Giordano Bruno by denying the finiteness of the universe and the Earth's exceptional position in it (being not the center of the universe, and in that regard equal in rank with the other stars). He was not, however, describing a scientifically verifiable theory of the universe: his beliefs (which proved uncannily accurate) were based almost entirely on his own personal numerological calculations and metaphysics.^[10]

Cusanus made important contributions to the field of mathematics by developing the concepts of the infinitesimal and of relative motion. He was the first to use concave lenses to correct myopia. His writings were essential for Leibniz's discovery of calculus (see Law of Continuity) as well as Cantor's later work on infinity^{[citation needed]}.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913 edition):

The astronomical views of the cardinal are scattered through his philosophical treatises. They evince complete independence of traditional doctrines, though they are based on symbolism of numbers, on combinations of letters, and on abstract speculations rather than observation. The earth is a star like other stars, is not the centre of the universe, is not at rest, nor are its poles fixed. The celestial bodies are not strictly spherical, nor are their orbits circular. The difference between theory and appearance is explained by relative motion. Had Copernicus been aware of these assertions he would probably have been encouraged by them to publish his own monumental work.^[11]

Politics[link]

In 1433, Nicholas proposed reform of the Holy Roman Empire and a method to elect Holy Roman Emperors. Although it was not adopted by the Church, his method was essentially the same one known today as the Borda count, which is used in many academic institutions, competitions, and even some political jurisdictions, in original form and a number of variations. His proposal preceded Borda's work by over three centuries.^[12]

Nicholas' opinions on the Empire, which he hoped to reform and strengthen, were cited against papal claims of temporal power in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Protestant writers were happy to cite a cardinal against Rome's pretensions. Protestants, however, found his writings against the Hussites wrong. Nicholas seemed to give the church too much power to interpret Scripture, instead of treating it as self interpreting and self-sufficient for salvation, the principle of sola scriptura.^[13]

Nicholas' own thought on the church changed with his departure from Basel. He tried arguing that the Basel assembly lacked the consent of the church throughout the world, especially the princes. Then he tried arguing that the church was unfolded from Peter (explicatio Petri).^[14] This allowed him to support the pope without abandoning ideas of reform. Thus he was able to propose to Pius II reform of the church, beginning with the pope himself. Then it was to spread through the Roman curia and outward throughout Christendom.^[15]

Nicholas and other Religions[link]

Nicholas supported the campaign of Pope Pius II for a crusade against the Turks, but this is not the limit of his thought on interreligious issues. Shortly after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, Nicholas wrote De pace fidei, On the Peace of Faith. This visionary work imagined a summit meeting in Heaven of representatives of all nations and religions. Islam and the Hussite movement in Bohemia are represented. The conference agrees that there can be una religio in varietate rituum, a single faith manifested in different rites, as manifested in the eastern and western rites of the Catholic Church. The dialog presupposes the greater accuracy of Christianity but gives respect to other religions.^[16] Less irenic but not virulent, is Cusanus' Cribratio Alchorani, Sifting the Koran, a detailed review of the Koran in Latin translation. While the arguments for the superiority of Christianity are still shown in this book, it also credits Judaism and Islam with sharing in the truth at least partially.^[17]

Cusanus' attitude toward the Jews was not always mild; on September 21, 1451 he ordered that Jews of Arnhem were to wear a Jew-badge. The De pace fidei mentions the possibility that the Jews might not embrace the larger union of una religio in varietate rituum, but it dismisses them as politically insignificant. This matches the decrees from Cusanus' legation restricting Jewish activities, restrictions later canceled by Pope Nicholas V.^[18]

See also[link]

• List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics

Bibliography[link]

• Beierwaltes, Werner, "Cusanus and Eriugena" in Dionysius, Volume XIII (1989): 115-152
• Bellitto, Christopher (ed.), Introducing Nicholas of Cusa: A Guide to a Renaissance Man , Paulist Press (2004).
• Bond, H. Lawrence (ed.), Nicholas of Cusa: Selected Spiritual Writings [Classics of Western Spirituality]. Paulist Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8091-3698-8
• Catà, Cesare, "Perspicere Deum. Nicholas of Cusa and the European Art of Fifteenth Century", in "Viator" 39 no. 1 (Spring 2008).
• Catà, Cesare, "La Croce e l'Inconcepibile. Il pensiero di Nicola Cusano tra filosofia e predicazione", EUM, Macerata (2009).
• D'Amico, Claudia, and Machetta, J. (edd.), El problema del conocimiento en Nicolás de Cusa: genealogía y proyección, EDITORIAL BIBLOS (2004).
• Flasch, Kurt, "Nikolaus von Kues : Geschichte einer Entwicklung", Georg Olms Verlag : 1998.
• Hoff, Johannes, "Kontingenz, Berührung, Überschreitung. Zur philosophischen Propädeutik christlicher Mystik nach Nikolaus von Kues", Alber: Freiburg/Br. 2007 [Contingency, Tangency, Transgression. A Philosophical Propae­deutics of Christian Mysticism subsequent to Nicholas of Cusa]
• Hopkins, Jasper (ed.), Complete philosophical and theological treatises of Nicholas of Cusa, 2 vols., Minneapolis : A. J. Banning Press, 2001.
• Izbicki, Thomas M. (ed.), Nicholas of Cusa, Writings on Church and Reform, Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2008.
• Jaspers, Karl, Nikolaus Cusanus, München 1964.
• Kern, Ralf, "Wissenschaftliche Instrumente in ihrer Zeit", 4 Bde. Köln: Walther Koenig, 2010.
• Kijewska, Agnieszka, Roman Majeran, Harald Schwaetzer (еds), Eriugena Cusanus. Lublin, 2011.
• Meuthen, Erich, Nicholas of Cusa: A Sketch for a Biography. Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2010.
• Miller, C. Lee, Reading Cusanus: Metaphor and Dialectic in a Conjectural Universe, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2003.
• Sigmund, Paul (ed.), The Catholic Concordance [Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought]. Cambridge University Press, 1991.
• Yamaki, Kazuhiko (ed.), Nicholas of Cusa: A Medieval Thinker for the Modern Age, Routledge, 2001.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Nikolaus von Kues

• Bernkastel-Kues tribute to Nikolaus von Kues
• MacTutor biography, focusing on mathematical achievements
• A biography of Nicholas of Cusa
• Catholic Encyclopedia article on Nicholas of Cusa
• Website of the Cusanusstift (German)
• American Cusanus Society
• Cusanus-Portal (DFG-Project by the Institut fuer Cusanus-Forschung and the Center for Digital Humanities at the university of Trier with a digitized version of the ‘Opera Omnia’, the critical edition of the Latin texts from Nicholas of Cusa, published by the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, with the English translations of Jasper Hopkins, several German translations, a German encyclopedia and an international bibliography)
• [3] Jasper Hopkins, Ph.D. has produced English translations with some commentary of much of Nicholas's work. Pdf versions are available at this site.
• Cusa's Peace of Faith

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