[lit-ideas] Re: Nicolas of Cusa's "Coincidentia Oppositorum"
- From: Michael Chase <goya@xxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 08 Aug 2004 12:51:59 -0700
Le 7 ao=FBt 04, =E0 19:43, Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx a =E9crit :
>
>
> "The demonstrable correlation of opposites
> is an image of the transcendental correlation
> of contradictories."
> S. Weil, Le Pensateur et la Grace,
> tr. A. Wills.
>
> E. Holder writes:
>
>> It's cute, this square [of opposition].
>
>
>
> M. Chase comments:
>
>> It is kind of cute, but like Robert Paul I doubt
>> it has anything to do with Weil. Far from drawing
>> a distinction between "opposites" and "contradictories",
>> Aristotle (Categories 10, 11b15 ff.) considers
>> contraries or contradictories to be one of four
>> sub-classes of the class "opposites", the others
>> being relatives, privation vs. possession, and
>> affirmation and negation. Again like R. Paul, I think
>> Weil is just using terminology loosely to
>> allude to Nicolas of Cusa's
>> idea of the *coincidentia oppositorum*.
>
>
>
> Wonder what book by Cusa Weil could have read.
>
> Cusa was a favourite author with J.L. Borges -- Cusa's definition of=20=
> God as
> the circle whose center is nowhere and the circumsference is=20
> everywhere.
>
> Doesn't the 'coincidentia oppositorum' trace back to Pythagoras and =
the
> other Pre-socratics?
M.C. I'm not sure about Pythagoras, although Philolaus fr. 7 does speak=20=
of the Pythagorean view that opposing powers of the cosmos are held=20
together by *harmonia* or reconciliation. Better attested are=20
Empedocles' views, according to which Harmonia or love (Greek=20
*Philot=EAs*) is the power that creates unity out of potentially hostile=20=
contraries=A0; and especially Heraclitus, who held that reality consists=20=
in an apparent war between contraries that is in fact a harmony. Cf.=20
fragment 53 Diels-Kranz (=3D fr. 83 in the excellent study by Charles=20
Kahn, Art and thought of Heraclitus, Cambridge 1979, p. 207ff)=A0: War =
is=20
father of all and king of all. As Kahn writes (p. 209) ...it would be=20
tedious to attempt a catalogue of all examples of polar contrsat or=20
opposition [sc. in Heraclitus]: there is scarcely a text of Heraclitus=20=
that would not have to be included....the doctrine of opposites, like=20
the thesis of unity which is its counterpart, is coextensive with=20
Heraclitus' thought as a whole".
As far as whence Weil might have known Nicolas of Cusa=A0: =
perhaps from=20
Maurice de Gandillac's Philosophie de Nicolas de Cuse (1941), and/or=20
his Oeuvres choisies de Nicolas de Cuse (1942).
By the way, Nicolas took over the idea of God as a circle etc. =
from=20
the Hermetic Book of the 24 philosophers.
Best, Mike.
>
>
Michael Chase
(goya@xxxxxxxxxxx)
CNRS UPR 76
7, rue Guy Moquet
Villejuif 94801
France
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