Nicholas of Cusa and the Aristotelian Tradition presents a collection of essays that work to connect Nicholas of Cusa to Aristotle and to Aristotle's presence in earlier medieval thinkers. In contrast, as the editors point out, Cusanus is usually placed within the Neoplatonic tradition, especially connected to the ideas of Proclus and Dionysius. The book is organized around the Aristotelian divisions of philosophy, from logic through metaphysics and ethics, and includes a final essay on Aristotle in Nicholas's sermons. This slim volume may serve as a helpful reference book because each essay includes many other (usually German) works on the topics of the different chapters.

Nicholas is full of respect for Aristotle, as these essays show, but they seldom show much of a substantive Aristotelian influence on the heart of what Nicholas thought about the universe and its creator. Nicholas of Cusa is certainly not an Aristotelian, however much he is acquainted with Aristotle and however many times he refers to him with respect as one of the wise (sapientes). Some instances where Nicholas refers to Aristotle—apart from praising him—end up being used for Nicholas's own purposes, quite apart from Aristotle's intent and meaning. For instance, matter, form, and their connection are seen as a triad and thus a figure of the divine Trinity in De beryllo. Another typical move is for Nicholas to parallel the Prime Mover and the Christian God, only to caution at once that Aristotle's Prime Mover is not free. He does not think so highly of the Aristotelians that are his contemporaries, labeling them as a “sect.” As Valentina Saffino, one of the editors, says regarding the Trinity in her essay “(Anti-)Aristotelianism in Cusanus’ Sermons,” “Cusanus refers to the texts of Aristotelian Metaphysics related to the doctrine of causes and the Unmoved Mover, re-reading these doctrines in a Neoplatonic and Christian sense” (220).

Of particular interest, because the topic is less frequently treated in English, are the various essays that touch on Aristotle's logic and metaphysics and Nicholas's teaching about the natural universe and the coincidence of opposites. Essays by L. Gill, A. Spieth, and A. Moritz tangle with both topics. They explain how Nicholas adapts Aristotle's genera and species to his own Christological purposes and how tangled up his ideas appear when Aristotle's categories and logic are applied to the God of Christian revelation. Nicholas clearly sees God-talk as ultimately beyond the consistent use of the principle of contradiction, though he uses that principle himself when discussing creatures.

Also enlightening are essays on Cusan ethics and politics and Aristotle's appearance in his sermons. Gerhard Krieger's essay, “Was ist eine gerechte Herrschaft?” and its accompanying bibliography is useful for the way Nicholas connects his ethics of equality and his political thought. Nicholas underscores the notion of active equality as expressed for individuals in the golden rule, and Krieger remarks how Nicholas's founding of the St. Nikolaus Hospital (still in Bernkastel-Kues today) is an example in his own life of what Nicholas intended. He also quotes Nicholas's idea that justice is founded on the golden rule—both as an internal principle and a condition of acting for and with others as one's equals. He describes Nicholas thus as seeing political life founded both on the necessity to live together voluntarily and equally in community and on the political and moral duty of freedom under political rule.

Taken as a whole, then, no one reading all the essays could deny Nicholas's respect for Aristotle. But neither could they affirm that the Cusan is an Aristotelian and not a Neoplatonist. It would not be a negative judgment to say that their essays demonstrate exactly how and why Aristotle figures in Nicholas's thought, but only, as it were, at its edges, not its heart. The cumulative effect of these essays thus ends up underscoring exactly what scholarship on Nicholas has almost always indicated about his thought having basically Neoplatonic roots.