Is polymathy good or bad?

We’ll get back to Heraclitus soon, but, meanwhile, is polymathy good or bad? Regardless of polymathy’s precise definition, is it a good or bad thing to have “great learning.” It certainly seems like a good thing. What could be bad about it?

It turns out that, over the years, philosophers and scholars have had an awful lot to say about that since Heraclitus's time. Plato, one of the greatest philosophers, wrote in his Laws that “a wide range of learning [i.e., polymathy] involves danger to children,” and “wide variety of knowledge and learning [polymathy] combined with bad training” is not the way that children should be educated. Wow! That’s a pretty serious condemnation of knowing a lot.

But Plato’s philosophic rival Isocrates, who founded a competing academy, took the opposite position. He wrote in his oration To Demonicus, “If you are a lover of wisdom [i.e., a philosopher], you will be a master of knowledge [i.e., a polymath].” So Isocrates said that, in order to be a philosopher, one must be a polymath. He was said to be so fond of this maxim that he had it written in golden letters at the front door of his school.

I like Isocrates’ opinion better. Maybe Plato was just reminding us that a little learning is a dangerous thing, but I subscribe to the theory that it is generally good to know more, rather than less.