Nicholas of Cusa and the Aristotelian Theory of Substance

In 1453 Nicholas of Cusa receives a copy of Bessarion’s translation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. In 1458, in his De beryllo, Cusanus discusses a few passages on substance of Aristotle’s treatise. In this paper, I flesh out three themes in order to show that Cusanus detached himself from the traditional Aristotelian concept of substance: a) the emphasis on the ‘intellectual character’ of the principle of being, b) the notion of ‘coincidentia oppositorum’ and c) the concept of ‘forma substantialis’. Despite the anti-Aristotelianism that emerges from these issues, I argue that Cusanus did not developed any new humanistic interpretation of the Aristotelian text, pace what Renaissance scholars have suggested. Rather, I suggest that Cusanus adopted the peculiar ‘neo-Platonizing’ interpretation of Aristotle that Heymeric de Campo had introduced at the University of Cologne.