Polymathy and creativity, polymathy and great ideas

We’ve been defining the polymath (or trying to define it), but we still have to keep in mind the concept that I have addressed here and there over the past couple of weeks – is polymathy a good thing? And a narrower way to think about whether polymathy is a good thing is this question: Is the polymath a more interesting person?

Other related questions are whether the polymath is a more creative person and whether the polymath is a wiser person.

I have hauled out some quotes on these issues from thinkers from the last couple of thousand years, but those guys were just philosophers and writers. Is there any empirical evidence that shows that polymaths are more creative, wiser, or just more interesting?

It turns out that there is some evidence on these issues. Scientists have been looking at polymathy recently, and have come up with some conclusions, which we will explore over the coming weeks.

But let’s begin with this thought. Let’s assume that great and creative ideas often come from linking arguably unrelated concepts. And one can only link arguably unrelated concepts when one knows those unrelated concepts. Thus, the link is only possible when the thinker is in command of many unrelated facts. In other words, he/she has to know a lot of stuff, i.e., be at least somewhat polymathic.

This line of thinking is not new. In fact it goes all the way back to ancient Rome, where the architect and engineer Vitruvius wrote in Book I, Chapter 1.3, of his De Architectura that, for example, “an architect should be ingenious, and apt in the acquisition of knowledge. Deficient in either of these qualities, he cannot be a perfect master. He should be a good writer, a skilful draftsman, versed in geometry and optics, expert at figures, acquainted with history, informed on the principles of natural and moral philosophy, somewhat of a musician, not ignorant of the sciences both of law and physic, nor of the motions, laws, and relations to each other, of the heavenly bodies.”

Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man

an extreme example of the passive polymath

Taking the previous example to an extreme, what is a person who has great expertise in many fields, but who has never worked in any of those fields or published any papers? Should that person be considered to be a polymath? Can you be a polymath if you've never demonstrated your expertise in a field outside of the classroom?

And to push it ever further, what if you are self-taught? I.e., an autodidact? There have certainly been a fair number of polymathic autodidacts throughout history. Benjamin Franklin is just one. But that was a different era. Can an autodidact be considered to be a modern polymath?

Just something to think about over the weekend.

more on Peter Burke's passive polymath

Yesterday, I introduced Cambridge historian Peter Burke's four types of polymaths. The first was the passive polymath, who reads widely but makes his/her reputation in one discipline alone.

Here are a couple of thoughts on the passive polymath. What does "reputation" mean for the purposes of being a polymath? What should it mean?

What if the person reads widely and is clearly an expert in one discipline, but does not have a  "reputation" in that discipline? What if he/she has mastered that one discipline, goes to work every day in that field, and does a good job, but has never written any papers in that field, has never given any speeches, and is really not known outside his or her company? Does that person still qualify as a passive polymath?

Peter Burke on polymathy

We’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel with respect to good definitions of polymathy. The other day I talked about Edward Carr’s “breadth” test and Carl Djerassi’s influence and acceptance tests for polymathy.

Today, we’ll talk about four separate ways to think about polymathy. They come from the distinguished Cambridge historian Peter Burke, who is most well known as a historian of the Renaissance, but who has also written a couple of excellent books on knowledge and cultural history. In fact, he calls himself a cultural historian.

He has also done a lot of thinking about polymathy recently. In his 2010 essay, “The polymath: A cultural and social history of an intellectual species,” he proposed a new understanding of the modern polymath that has attempted to take into account the limitations on polymathy caused by specialization. He lamented that polymathy “has been diluted to refer to people who have mastered two or three disciplines,” and suggested categorizing the modern polymath into four distinct groups:

1.                  The passive polymaths, who read widely but make their reputation in one discipline alone.

2.                  The limited polymaths, active in a small cluster of neighboring disciplines.

3.                  The serial polymaths, whose interests gradually shifted from one discipline to others.

4.                  Most remarkable of all, is a fourth group, proper polymaths who have continued to work in several fields and to make serious contributions to all of them, keeping several balls in the air at the same time rather than picking them up one by one.

Finally, we’re getting somewhere with understanding what a polymath really is. Professor Burke has nailed it in my opinion.

I’ll leave you to think about his classification overnight, and we’ll talk more about it later.

the origin of polymath in the English language

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word polymath was first used by the English author Robert Burton in his 1624 book The Anatomy of Melancholy. This book, which is almost 400 years old, is amazingly still in print.

According to Wikipedia, "the book is presented as a medical textbook in which Burton applies his vast and varied learning, in the scholastic manner, to the subject of melancholia (which includes what is now termed clinical depression). Though presented as a medical text, The Anatomy of Melancholy is as much a sui generis work of literature as it is a scientific or philosophical text, and Burton addresses far more than his stated subject."

I have no idea if this is true. I have looked through this book, and could not make heads or tails out of it. In the 21st century, it is not a book to be read; it is a book to be studied, and I can't see any reason to study it.

Edward Carr and Carl Djerassi on polymathy

Journalist Edward Carr wrote a really interesting article a few years ago in a current magazine published by The Economist that was then called Intelligent Life (and is now called 1843).

His article was titled The Days of the Polymath, and is a must-read for anyone interested in the modern polymath. He interviewed several polymaths (at least by his standards) and tried to address the question of why there are fewer polymaths these days than formerly.

Carr came up with a “breadth” test for polymath status, explaining that “a scientist who composes operas and writes novels is more of a polymath than a novelist who can turn out a play or a painter who can sculpt.” He believed that success in thoroughly unrelated fields enhanced one’s polymath status.

Carr interviewed the polymathic Carl Djerassi, who was one of the inventors of the birth control pill. Djerassi argued that influence and acceptance was an essential requirement of polymathy. Djerassi believed 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. He said, “It means that your polymath activities have passed a certain quality control that is exerted within each field by the competition. If they accept you at their level, then I think you have reached that state rather than just dabbling.”

Djerassi’s definition is thus not as rigorous to the definitions proposed by the Royal Institution’s speakers that we reviewed yesterday. Remember that they had all argued that a real polymath had to make some sort of contribution to his/her field at a professional level.

In contrast, Djerassi argues only that others in the field accept the potential polymath as one of their own in the field.

That seems more reasonable. More tomorrow.

Polymathy at the Royal Institution of Great Britain

Let’s get back to talking about definitions of polymathy. In the modern era, some good definitions come from a 2007 presentation at the Royal Institution of Great Britain with the fascinating title of “What happened to the polymaths?” The Royal Institution is one of the leading science museums in Great Britain and certainly one of the oldest, having been founded in 1799.

At this presentation, Oliver Morton, who was then the Chief News and Features editor at Nature, proposed a rigorous definition of the polymath as “someone who makes contributions to four widely conceived as distinct areas of science and culture” at a “professional level.” This is a pretty serious definition.

John Whitfield, who is the author of a biography of the British polymath D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson, argued that a polymath was one who made “a contribution to more than one field that would stand on its own.” This seems like a much looser definition in that it only requires expertise in two fields as opposed to four fields, but it still is pretty strict because it requires a contribution to the field. That means that the person has to be a world class expert who is doing cutting edge stuff in the field. This would knock out anyone who is undeniably an expert in the field, but who has not added to the sum total of knowledge in the field.

Finally, Andrew Robinson, who is the author of a biography of another British polymath, Thomas Young, thought that a polymath had to have broad learning and curiosity that led to something original. This is a more general definition, but it still knocks out the person who just knows a lot about something, but who has not advanced the field.

Are these good definitions? What about the plain old scholar who knows a lot about something, but who is not a cutting edge thinker in the field? More on that later.