La divisio entis fra Cusano e Pico. Note sulla traduzione del concetto di ens

This paper aims to analyze Cusanus metaphysical terminology concerning One and Being, in order to disambiguate every specific meaning of his words. In particular, the paper focuses on the words ens and entitas, exploring their etymology and their function in the structure of the argumentation. We will show that Cusanus recollects the same distinction exposed by Boethius between an absolute and a participate expression of Being: esse and ens, or esse and id quod est. However, even the word ens acquires two different meanings. On the one hand, it expresses a finite, determined and participate being, so that we might ask about it: 'what is this?', and receive a specific answer. On the other hand, sometimes ens means also the absolute ontological condition that precedes every possible finite being. In this second case, we could not ask again 'what is this?', since the only possible proposition is that it simply 'is', 'exists.