Николай от Куза и диалектиката на „живото огледало“
Nicholas of Cusa and the Dialectics of the Living Mirror

Summary/Abstract: The main aim of this article is to provoke research interest in a rather undeveloped part of Cusan symbolic theology, namely – the mirror metaphor. Its persistent reappearance, together with its compatibility with the broad philosophical context of his system, allows us to assume that for the Cardinal himself this symbol functioned as an additional “key” to the final goal of the learned ignorance – the mystical ascent to the infinite. In order to elucidate this alternative approach, the article examines the images of the mirror, the living mirror, and the perfect living mirror as metaphor’s manifestations on the three general ontological levels – respectively, nature, human, and God. The following comparison of Cusan and Leibnizian uses of the metaphor allows us to conclude that, while the Cardinal’s symbols often “tempt” into drawing parallels between him and the Early Modern philosophy, his views are better understood as independent and should be freed from the prejudices of his protomodernity. This final claim is argued not in terms of the symbol used, but in terms of the motivation behind it.

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