the modern polymath defined, part 3

Two weeks ago, I wrote about Edward Carr’s and Carl Djerassi’s ideas on polymathy.

Remember that Carr had a “breadth” test for polymath status. He argued that success in thoroughly unrelated fields enhanced one’s polymath status.

And Djerassi believed that influence and acceptance was an essential requirement of polymathy. He said that a person was not really a polymath unless he or she was accepted as an expert by practitioners in each field that the polymath claimed to master.

These ideas are critical. The aspiring polymath must have significant breadth of knowledge and must be accepted as a true member of the fields in question.

In other words, a poet and songwriter is not a polymath. Nor is a painter and etcher. Probably a microbiologist and neurobiologist is not one either. These pairs of fields simply aren't unrelated enough.

More tomorrow.