Polymath

A polymath[a][1] or polyhistor[b][2] is an individual whose

knowledge spans many different subjects, known to draw on
complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems.
Polymaths often prefer a specific context in which to explain their
knowledge but others can be gifted at explaining abstractly and
creatively.[3]

Embodying a basic tenet of Renaissance humanism that humans

are limitless in their capacity for development, the concept led to
the notion that people should embrace all knowledge and develop
their capacities as fully as possible. This is expressed in the term
Renaissance man, often applied to the gifted people of that age
who sought to develop their abilities in all areas of
accomplishment: intellectual, artistic, social, physical, and
spiritual. Portrait of Benjamin Franklin by
David Martin, 1767. Benjamin
Franklin is one of the foremost
Etymology polymaths in American history.
Franklin was a writer, scientist,
inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer
In Western Europe, the first work to use the term polymathy in
and political philosopher. He further
its title (De Polymathia tractatio: integri operis de studiis attained a legacy as one of the
veterum) was published in 1603 by Johann von Wowern, a Founding Fathers of the United
Hamburg philosopher.[4][5][6] Von Wowern defined polymathy as States.
"knowledge of various matters, drawn from all kinds of studies ...
ranging freely through all the fields of the disciplines, as far as
the human mind, with unwearied industry, is able to pursue them".[4] Von Wowern lists erudition,
literature, philology, philomathy, and polyhistory as synonyms.

The earliest recorded use of the term in the English language is from 1624, in the second edition of The
Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton;[7] the form polymathist is slightly older, first appearing in the
Diatribae upon the first part of the late History of Tithes of Richard Montagu in 1621.[8] Use in English
of the similar term polyhistor dates from the late 16th century.[9]

Renaissance man
The term "Renaissance man" was first recorded in written English in the early 20th century.[10] It is used
to refer to great thinkers living before, during, or after the Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci has often been
described as the archetype of the Renaissance man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly
inventive imagination".[11] Many notable polymaths[c] lived during the Renaissance period, a cultural
movement that spanned roughly the 14th through to the 17th century that began in Italy in the Late
Middle Ages and later spread to the rest of Europe. These
polymaths had a rounded approach to education that reflected the
ideals of the humanists of the time. A gentleman or courtier of that
era was expected to speak several languages, play a musical
instrument, write poetry, and so on; thus fulfilling the Renaissance
ideal.

The idea of a universal education was essential to achieving

polymath ability, hence the word university was used to describe a
seat of learning. However, the original Latin word universitas
refers in general to "a number of persons associated into one body,
a society, company, community, guild, corporation, etc".[12] At this
time, universities did not specialize in specific areas, but rather
trained students in a broad array of science, philosophy, and
theology. This universal education gave them a grounding from Portrait of Sir Christopher Wren by
which they could continue into apprenticeship toward becoming a Godfrey Kneller, 1711. Best known
master of a specific field. as an architect, Christopher Wren
was also an astronomer,
When someone is called a "Renaissance man" today, it is meant mathematician and physicist

that rather than simply having broad interests or superficial

knowledge in several fields, the individual possesses a more profound knowledge and a proficiency, or
even an expertise, in at least some of those fields.[13] Some dictionaries use the term "Renaissance man"
to describe someone with many interests or talents,[14] while others give a meaning restricted to the
Renaissance and more closely related to Renaissance ideals.

In academia

Robert Root-Bernstein and colleagues

Robert Root-Bernstein is considered the principal responsible for rekindling interest in polymathy in the
scientific community.[15][16] His works emphasize the contrast between the polymath and two other
types: the specialist and the dilettante. The specialist demonstrates depth but lacks breadth of knowledge.
The dilettante demonstrates superficial breadth but tends to acquire skills merely "for their own sake
without regard to understanding the broader applications or implications and without integrating
it".[17]: 857 Conversely, the polymath is a person with a level of expertise that is able to "put a significant
amount of time and effort into their avocations and find ways to use their multiple interests to inform
their vocations".[18]: 857 [19][20][21][22]

A key point in the work of Root-Bernstein and colleagues is the argument in favor of the universality of
the creative process. That is, although creative products, such as a painting, a mathematical model or a
poem, can be domain-specific, at the level of the creative process, the mental tools that lead to the
generation of creative ideas are the same, be it in the arts or science.[20] These mental tools are sometimes
called intuitive tools of thinking. It is therefore not surprising that many of the most innovative scientists
have serious hobbies or interests in artistic activities, and that some of the most innovative artists have an
interest or hobbies in the sciences.[18][21][23][24]
Root-Bernstein and colleagues' research is an important counterpoint to the claim by some psychologists
that creativity is a domain-specific phenomenon. Through their research, Root-Bernstein and colleagues
conclude that there are certain comprehensive thinking skills and tools that cross the barrier of different
domains and can foster creative thinking: "[creativity researchers] who discuss integrating ideas from
diverse fields as the basis of creative giftedness ask not 'who is creative?' but 'what is the basis of creative
thinking?' From the polymathy perspective, giftedness is the ability to combine disparate (or even
apparently contradictory) ideas, sets of problems, skills, talents, and knowledge in novel and useful ways.
Polymathy is therefore the main source of any individual's creative potential".[17]: 857 In "Life Stages of
Creativity", Robert and Michèle Root-Bernstein suggest six typologies of creative life stages. These
typologies are based on real creative production records first published by Root-Bernstein, Bernstein, and
Garnier (1993).

Type 1 represents people who specialize in developing one major talent early in life (e.g.,
prodigies) and successfully exploit that talent exclusively for the rest of their lives.
Type 2 individuals explore a range of different creative activities (e.g., through worldplay or a
variety of hobbies) and then settle on exploiting one of these for the rest of their lives.
Type 3 people are polymathic from the outset and manage to juggle multiple careers
simultaneously so that their creativity pattern is constantly varied.
Type 4 creators are recognized early for one major talent (e.g., math or music) but go on to
explore additional creative outlets, diversifying their productivity with age.
Type 5 creators devote themselves serially to one creative field after another.
Type 6 people develop diversified creative skills early and then, like Type 5 individuals,
explore these serially, one at a time.
Finally, his studies suggest that understanding polymathy and learning from polymathic exemplars can
help structure a new model of education that better promotes creativity and innovation: "we must focus
education on principles, methods, and skills that will serve them [students] in learning and creating across
many disciplines, multiple careers, and succeeding life stages".[25]: 161

Peter Burke
Peter Burke, Professor Emeritus of Cultural History and Fellow of Emmanuel College at Cambridge,
discussed the theme of polymathy in some of his works. He has presented a comprehensive historical
overview of the ascension and decline of the polymath as, what he calls, an "intellectual
species".[26][27][28]

He observes that in ancient and medieval times, scholars did not have to specialize. However, from the
17th century on, the rapid rise of new knowledge in the Western world—both from the systematic
investigation of the natural world and from the flow of information coming from other parts of the world
—was making it increasingly difficult for individual scholars to master as many disciplines as before.
Thus, an intellectual retreat of the polymath species occurred: "from knowledge in every [academic] field
to knowledge in several fields, and from making original contributions in many fields to a more passive
consumption of what has been contributed by others".[29]: 72

Given this change in the intellectual climate, it has since then been more common to find "passive
polymaths", who consume knowledge in various domains but make their reputation in one single
discipline, than "proper polymaths", who—through a feat of "intellectual heroism"—manage to make
serious contributions to several disciplines. However, Burke warns that in the age of specialization,
polymathic people are more necessary than ever, both for synthesis—to paint the big picture—and for
analysis. He says: "It takes a polymath to 'mind the gap' and draw attention to the knowledges that may
otherwise disappear into the spaces between disciplines, as they are currently defined and
organized".[30]: 183

Bharath Sriraman
Bharath Sriraman, of the University of Montana, also investigated the role of polymathy in education. He
poses that an ideal education should nurture talent in the classroom and enable individuals to pursue
multiple fields of research and appreciate both the aesthetic and structural/scientific connections between
mathematics, arts and the sciences.[31]

In 2009, Sriraman published a paper reporting a 3-year study with 120 pre-service mathematics teachers
and derived several implications for mathematics pre-service education as well as interdisciplinary
education.[16] He utilized a hermeneutic-phenomenological approach to recreate the emotions, voices and
struggles of students as they tried to unravel Russell's paradox presented in its linguistic form. They
found that those more engaged in solving the paradox also displayed more polymathic thinking traits. He
concludes by suggesting that fostering polymathy in the classroom may help students change beliefs,
discover structures and open new avenues for interdisciplinary pedagogy.[16]

Michael Araki
Michael Araki is a professor at the UNSW Business School at the University of New South Wales,
Australia. He sought to formalize in a general model how the development of polymathy takes place. His
Developmental Model of Polymathy (DMP) is presented in a 2018 article with two main objectives:

1. organize the elements involved in the process of polymathy development into a structure of
relationships that is wed to the approach of polymathy as a life project, and;
2. provide an articulation with other well-developed constructs, theories, and models,
especially from the fields of giftedness and education.[32]
The model, which was designed to reflect a structural model, has five major components:

1. polymathic antecedents
2. polymathic mediators
3. polymathic achievements
4. intrapersonal moderators
5. environmental moderators[32]
 The Developmental Model of Polymathy (DMP)

Regarding the definition of the term polymathy, the researcher, through an analysis of the extant
literature, concluded that although there are a multitude of perspectives on polymathy, most of them
ascertain that polymathy entails three core elements: breadth, depth and integration.[32][33][34]

Breadth refers to comprehensiveness, extension and diversity of knowledge. It is contrasted with the idea
of narrowness, specialization, and the restriction of one's expertise to a limited domain. The possession of
comprehensive knowledge at very disparate areas is a hallmark of the greatest polymaths.[32] Depth refers
to the vertical accumulation of knowledge and the degree of elaboration or sophistication of one's sets of
one's conceptual network. Like Robert Root-Bernstein, Araki uses the concept of dilettancy as a contrast
to the idea of profound learning that polymathy entails.[32]

Integration, although not explicit in most definitions of polymathy, is also a core component of
polymathy according to the author. Integration involves the capacity of connecting, articulating,
concatenating or synthesizing different conceptual networks, which in non-polymathic persons might be
segregated. In addition, integration can happen at the personality level, when the person is able to
integrate their diverse activities in a synergic whole, which can also mean a psychic (motivational,
emotional and cognitive) integration.[32]

Finally, the author also suggests that, via a psychoeconomic approach, polymathy can be seen as a "life
project". That is, depending on a person's temperament, endowments, personality, social situation and
opportunities (or lack thereof), the project of a polymathic self-formation may present itself to the person
as more or less alluring and more or less feasible to be pursued.[32]

Kaufman, Beghetto and colleagues

James C. Kaufman, from the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut, and Ronald A.
Beghetto, from the same university, investigated the possibility that everyone could have the potential for
polymathy as well as the issue of the domain-generality or domain-specificity of creativity.[35][36]

Based on their earlier four-c model of creativity, Beghetto and Kaufman[37][38] proposed a typology of
polymathy, ranging from the ubiquitous mini-c polymathy to the eminent but rare Big-C polymathy, as
well as a model with some requirements for a person (polymath or not) to be able to reach the highest
levels of creative accomplishment. They account for three general requirements—intelligence, motivation
to be creative, and an environment that allows creative expression—that are needed for any attempt at
creativity to succeed. Then, depending on the domain of choice, more specific abilities will be required.
The more that one's abilities and interests match the requirements of a domain, the better. While some
will develop their specific skills and motivations for specific domains, polymathic people will display
intrinsic motivation (and the ability) to pursue a variety of subject matters across different domains.[38]

Regarding the interplay of polymathy and education, they suggest that rather than asking whether every
student has multicreative potential, educators might more actively nurture the multicreative potential of
their students. As an example, the authors cite that teachers should encourage students to make
connections across disciplines, use different forms of media to express their reasoning/understanding
(e.g., drawings, movies, and other forms of visual media).[35]

Waqas Ahmed
In his 2018 book The Polymath, British author Waqas Ahmed defines polymaths as those who have made
significant contributions to at least three different fields.[16] Rather than seeing polymaths as
exceptionally gifted, he argues that every human being has the potential to become one: that people
naturally have multiple interests and talents.[39] He contrasts this polymathic nature against what he calls
"the cult of specialisation".[40] For example, education systems stifle this nature by forcing learners to
specialise in narrow topics.[39] The book argues that specialisation encouraged by the production lines of
the Industrial Revolution is counter-productive both to the individual and wider society. It suggests that
the complex problems of the 21st century need the versatility, creativity, and broad perspectives
characteristic of polymaths.[39]

For individuals, Ahmed says, specialisation is dehumanising and stifles their full range of expression
whereas polymathy "is a powerful means to social and intellectual emancipation" which enables a more
fulfilling life.[41] In terms of social progress, he argues that answers to specific problems often come from
combining knowledge and skills from multiple areas, and that many important problems are multi-
dimensional in nature and cannot be fully understood through one specialism.[41] Rather than interpreting
polymathy as a mix of occupations or of intellectual interests, Ahmed urges a breaking of the
"thinker"/"doer" dichotomy and the art/science dichotomy. He argues that an orientation towards action
and towards thinking support each other, and that human beings flourish by pursuing a diversity of
experiences as well as a diversity of knowledge. He observes that successful people in many fields have
cited hobbies and other "peripheral" activities as supplying skills or insights that helped them succeed.[42]

Ahmed examines evidence suggesting that developing multiple talents and perspectives is helpful for
success in a highly specialised field. He cites a study of Nobel Prize-winning scientists which found them
25 times more likely to sing, dance, or act than average scientists.[43] Another study found that children
scored higher in IQ tests after having drum lessons, and he uses such research to argue that diversity of
domains can enhance a person's general intelligence.[44]

Ahmed cites many historical claims for the advantages of polymathy. Some of these are about general
intellectual abilities that polymaths apply across multiple domains. For example, Aristotle wrote that full
understanding of a topic requires, in addition to subject knowledge, a general critical thinking ability that
can assess how that knowledge was arrived at.[45] Another advantage of a polymathic mindset is in the
application of multiple approaches to understanding a single issue. Ahmed cites biologist E. O. Wilson's
view that reality is approached not by a single academic discipline but via a consilience between them.[46]
One argument for studying multiple approaches is that it leads to open-mindedness. Within any one
perspective, a question may seem to have a straightforward, settled answer. Someone aware of different,
contrasting answers will be more open-minded and aware of the limitations of their own knowledge. The
importance of recognising these limitations is a theme that Ahmed finds in many thinkers, including
Confucius, Ali ibn Abi Talib, and Nicolas of Cusa. He calls it "the essential mark of the polymath."[46] A
further argument for multiple approaches is that a polymath does not see diverse approaches as diverse,
because they see connections where other people see differences. For example da Vinci advanced
multiple fields by applying mathematical principles to each.[47]

Examples
Polymaths include the great scholars and thinkers of the Renaissance and Enlightenment, who excelled at
several fields in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and the arts. In the Italian Renaissance,
the idea of the polymath was allegedly expressed by Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472), a polymath
himself, in the statement that "a man can do all things if he will".[48] Well-known and celebrated
polymaths include Avicenna, Leonardo da Vinci, Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz,[49] Robert Hooke,
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Christian Wolff,[50] Al-Biruni,[51] Hildegard of Bingen, Ibn al-Haytham,
Rabindranath Tagore, Mikhail Lomonosov, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Alan Turing, Benjamin
Franklin, John von Neumann, Omar Khayyam, Charles Sanders Peirce, Henri Poincaré, Nicolaus
Copernicus, Johann Weikhard von Valvasor, René Descartes, Aristotle, Emperor Frederick II, Averroes,
Archimedes, Hypatia, Blaise Pascal, Isaac Newton, Leonhard Euler, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison,
Bertrand Russell, Thomas Young, Sequoyah, Thomas Jefferson, Pierre-Simon Laplace, Friedrich Engels,
and William Whewell.

Related terms
Aside from Renaissance man, similar terms in use are homo universalis (Latin) and uomo universale
(Italian), which translate to 'universal man'.[1] The related term generalist—contrasted with a specialist—
is used to describe a person with a general approach to knowledge.

The term universal genius or versatile genius is also used, with Leonardo da Vinci as the prime example
again. The term is used especially for people who made lasting contributions in at least one of the fields
in which they were actively involved and when they took a universality of approach.

When a person is described as having encyclopedic knowledge, they exhibit a vast scope of knowledge.
However, this designation may be anachronistic in the case of persons such as Eratosthenes, whose
reputation for having encyclopedic knowledge predates the existence of any encyclopedic object.

See also
Amateur
Competent man
Creative class
 Genius
Interdisciplinarity
Jack of all trades, master of none
Multipotentiality
Opsimath
Philomath
Polyglotism
Polygraph (author)
Polymatheia – a muse of knowledge in Greek mythology

References and notes

a. (Greek: πολυμαθής, romanized: polymathēs, lit. 'having learned much'; Latin: homo
universalis, lit. 'universal human')
b. (Greek: πολυΐστωρ, romanized: polyīstor, lit. 'well-learned')
c. Though numerous figures in history could be considered to be polymaths, they are not listed
here, as they are not only too numerous to list, but also as the definition of any one figure as
a polymath is disputable, due to the term's loosely-defined nature, there being no given set
of characteristics outside of a person having a wide range of learning across a number of
different disciplines; many also did not identify as polymaths, the term having only come into
existence in the early 17th century.
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checked/topic/497891/Renaissance-man). Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20150503
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49. Dvořák, Petr; Schmutz, Jacob (2008). Juan Caramuel Lobkowitz: The Last Scholastic
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i-abu-rayhan-index). www.iranicaonline.org. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/2019111
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17 November 2019. Retrieved 29 May 2019. "BĪRŪNĪ, ABŪ RAYḤĀN MOḤAMMAD b.
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Further reading
Carr, Edward (1 October 2009). "Last Days of the Polymath" (https://www.1843magazine.co
m/content/edward-carr/last-days-polymath). Intelligent Life. The Economist Group. Archived
(https://web.archive.org/web/20191220210456/https://www.1843magazine.com/content/edw
ard-carr/last-days-polymath) from the original on 20 December 2019. Retrieved 12 January
2017.
Edmonds, David (August 2017). Does the world need polymaths? (https://www.bbc.com/ne
ws/magazine-40865986) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20210624230321/https://ww
w.bbc.com/news/magazine-40865986) 24 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine, BBC.
Frost, Martin, "Polymath: A Renaissance Man" (https://web.archive.org/web/2006011121081
7/http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/Polymath.html).
Grafton, A, "The World of the Polyhistors: Humanism and Encyclopedism", Central
European History, 18: 31–47. (1985).
Jaumann, Herbert, "Was ist ein Polyhistor? Gehversuche auf einem verlassenen Terrain",
Studia Leibnitiana, 22: 76–89. (1990) .
Mikkelsen, Kenneth; Martin, Richard (2016). The Neo-Generalist: Where You Go is Who
You Are (https://richardmartinwriter.com/the-neo-generalist/). London: LID Publishing Ltd.
ISBN 9781910649558. Retrieved 6 August 2019.
Mirchandani, Vinnie, "The New Polymath: Profiles in Compound-Technology Innovations" (ht
tps://books.google.com/books?id=v7bP_KlooLwC) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20
230407101215/https://books.google.com/books?id=v7bP_KlooLwC) 7 April 2023 at the
Wayback Machine, John Wiley & Sons. (2010).
Sher, Barbara (2007). Refuse to Choose!: A Revolutionary Program for Doing Everything
that You Love (https://archive.org/details/refusetochoose00barb). [Emmaus, Pa.]: Rodale.
ISBN 978-1594866265.
Twigger, Robert, "Anyone can be a Polymath" We live in a one-track world, but anyone can
become a polymath (https://aeon.co/essays/we-live-in-a-one-track-world-but-anyone-can-be
come-a-polymath) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20210610103354/https://aeon.co/e
ssays/we-live-in-a-one-track-world-but-anyone-can-become-a-polymath) 10 June 2021 at
the Wayback Machine Aeon Essays.
Ahmed, Waqas (2018). The Polymath: Unlocking the Power of Human Versatility (https://ww
w.wiley.com/en-us/The+Polymath:+Unlocking+the+Power+of+Human+Versatility-p-9781119
508489). West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9781119508489. Archived (https://we
b.archive.org/web/20210417033240/https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Polymath:+Unlocking
+the+Power+of+Human+Versatility-p-9781119508489) from the original on 17 April 2021.
Retrieved 6 August 2019.
Waquet, F, (ed.) "Mapping the World of Learning: The 'Polyhistor' of Daniel Georg Morhof"
(2000) ISBN 978-3447043991.
Wiens, Kyle (May 2012). "In defense of polymaths" (https://hbr.org/2012/05/in-defense-of-po
lymaths/). Harvard Business Review. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/2021041703322
 0/https://hbr.org/2012/05/in-defense-of-polymaths/) from the original on 17 April 2021.
Retrieved 12 August 2015.
Brown, Vincent Polymath-Info Portal (http://polymath-info.com/index.html) Archived (https://
web.archive.org/web/20210417033231/http://polymath-info.com/index.html) 17 April 2021 at
the Wayback Machine.

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