ABSTRACT
This paper explores Cusanus’ epistemology in Idiota de mente, with special regard to its relation to Aristotelism and Neoplatonism. This work is well suited for such a purpose, since in the dialogue between three persons of which this book consists, the ‘idiota’ who represents Cusanus’ own ideas, finds his main partner in dialogue in a Peripatetic ‘philosophus’. Thus, it can be assumed that Cusanus in this work tried to make some kind of synthesis between Aristotelism and his own original Neoplatonic standpoint. In chapter 4 of this book, we find a positioning of the problem. Here, the Philosopher asks the ‘idiota’,
aiebat Aristoteles menti seu animae nostrae nullam notionem fore concreatam, quia earn tabulae rasae assimilavit. Plato vero aiebat notiones sibi concreatas, sed ob corporis molem animam oblitam. Quid tu in hoc verum censes? 1
