Although Aristotle’s methodical approach became integrated into Christian doctrines, it was heavily based on human senses and logical reasoning, and yet it also disclosed any theology from its point of view. One of the most widely known statements from Socrates is perhaps ‘to know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.’ In Plato’s Apology, Socrates comes to realize that he is described as ‘the wisest of them all’ because he is aware of his own ignorance whilst others just assume the certainty of their knowledge. This acceptance of ignorance includes the idea that the senses are too unreliable to provide certain knowledge, but also that moral knowledge should be the foundation of all other forms of knowledge as it alone can direct how our knowledge should be used.
Nicholas of Cusa, was a papal legate, experimental scientist, philosopher, mathematician, and theologian among other things – a genuine Renaissance man. He wrote a now widely recognized seminal text on learned ignorance and its relationship to knowledge (De Docta Ignorantia – Of Learned Ignorance, 1440). Whilst Nicholas of Cusa’s starting point is the unknowability of God (the infinite cannot be fully known by that which is finite), he goes on to apply his principle to other spheres of human knowledge. He – reminiscent of Socrates – argues that the ‘mind is the limit and the measure of all things,’ all knowledge is therefore restricted to the capacities of the mind to what can be ‘cognitively measured.’ Being finite, the mind cannot have a complete understanding of anything, thus reducing human knowledge to conjecture as ‘the exactness of truth cannot be attained.’
