Week 6 - Assigned Reading Posting

Week 6 - Assigned Reading Posting

What I believe Nicholas of Cusa means by the term "Learned Ignorance" is that at one point in any persons education, that person will come to the realization that they know very little about the subject that they are learning, or just how much someone else knows about the subject they have learned, usually after this point people either accept the fact that the have a lot to learn, or abandon the subject they were learning. People learn more by failure than they do by success, as they get more practice, and usually have to learn to correct the mistake that they made, in this one can really never be open to the idea that they are wrong, unless they are willing to admit that their own ignorance.

Nicholas of Cusa stated in his text about Learned Ignorance "Socrates seemed to himself to know nothing except that he did not know. And the very wise Solomon maintained that all things are difficult and unexplainable in words", with these two sentences I believe that Nicholas of Cusa is trying to tell people that it is alright to not know everything, and help them understand that usually after they admit that they do not know everything they can begin to learn.

Sources: Nicholas of Cusa, 1981, On Learned Ignorance, 1985 Edition, The Arthur J. Banning Press