The Polymath: Unlocking the Power of Human Versatility

by Waqas Ahmed

  Whist the polymathic philosopher was typified first by the Greeks (Aristotle being the archetype), Islamic philosophers from the tenth to thirteenth centuries developed their own tradition of polymathic enquiry. Ibn Sina (Latinised Avicenna), one of the best known Islamic philosophers in the West, had memorised the Quran by the age of 10 and had mastered all the branches of Islamic learning by the age of 21. As court physician to the Samanid the Emperor, he was given access to a magnificent library that enabled him to further his studies in a variety of other fields. The intellectual odyssey that ensued culminated in the Kitab al-Shifa, a compendium of learning encompassing many elements of philosophy and science including logic, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, music and metaphysics. It is considered by many to be the largest and most varied work of its kind by any single man.

  Ibn Rushd (Latinised Averroes) is considered Ibn Sina’s intellectual successor. He attended the world famous Cordoba University, studying theology, law and medicine simultaneously. He was appointed chief judge in Cordoba and in parallel served as the court physician to the Almohad prince Abu Ya’qub Yusuf, where he made a tremendous scholarly contribution to medicine, al Kulliyat fi al Tibb (Generalities in Medicine), a medical encyclopaedia. At court, Ibn Rushd found himself in the unique position — like Ibn Sina, Ibn Tafayl and others before him — of being able to pursue his interest in wide-ranging philosophical enquiry. A scholar of Aristotelian philosophy, his response to al Ghazali’s earlier critique of Greek philosophy was hailed as one of the most important works in the history of Islamic philosophy. Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, a twelfth-century Persian ayatollah, made groundbreaking contributions to theology, philosophy and almost all branches of the known natural sciences of his time; most notably mathematics (geometry), chemistry (conversion of mass), biology (evolution) and astronomy (planetary motion).

  Some philosophical polymaths could also be considered cultural critics. John Ruskin wrote several books on architecture, won the prestigious Newdigate Prize for poetry at Oxford, wrote papers on geology and botany, penned a critique of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, and became the leading art critic and historian of his generation — his multivolume masterpiece Modern Painters is still considered one of the best works of art criticism of modern times. He was also a visual artist and political thinker in his own right with a massive influence in both art and political circles. Of comparable stature was Ceylonese art historian Ananda Coomaraswamy, who was the first to bring Indian art to the attention of Western artists. Coomaraswamy was also a philosopher and metaphysician who championed the ‘perennial philosophy’ and became one of the founding fathers of the Traditionalists School. As a mineralogist he was involved in the Geological Survey of Ceylon. He was a prominent member of the Bengal cultural renaissance as well as the swadeshi independence movement, a genuine polyglot who knew languages as diverse as Latin, Hindi, Icelandic, French, Pali, Greek, English, Sanskrit, Persian and Chinese.

  Intellectual polymaths are either scholars that excel in multiple unrelated disciplines (multidisciplinary), or thinkers who synthesise seemingly disparate areas of knowledge in order to make a serious contribution to one of more of them (interdisciplinary). A good example of the former is American writer Isaac Asimov, who published books which fell into all of the 10 major categories of the Dewey Decimal library system. He is best known for his popular science books and highly regarded science fiction novels. He wrote books on all areas of the sciences (chemistry, mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, computers, anatomy) and on subjects as wide ranging as theology, literature, limericks and DIY. In total he wrote over 500 books and short stories, many of them published posthumously.

  Interdisciplinary scholars thoroughly acquaint themselves with different disciplines (understanding how they fit into the puzzle) rather than necessarily making specific contributions to the understanding of each. That is, they synthesise in order to contextualise, and vice versa. Some of the best social scientists, for example, have demonstrated an exceptional ability to synthesise multiple strands of knowledge. Karl Marx drew upon his clearly wide-ranging knowledge of economics, politics, sociology, history, literature and psychology in order to formulate ‘laws of capitalism’ (notably analysed in Das Kapital); a hypothesis that would have a powerful impact on world politics throughout the twentieth century. According to Marxist scholar David Harvey: ‘For Marx, new knowledge arises out of taking radically different conceptual blocs, rubbing them together and making a revolutionary fire.’ His apparent ideological rival Adam Smith too had a rounded knowledge of various subjects including physics, astronomy, law, history and metaphysics (he wrote important essays on each), all of which he fused to construct his hugely influential economic philosophy as articulated in The Wealth of Nations. Some influences such as astronomy may not seem immediately obvious, but it would certainly have provided scientific context and framework to his thinking.

  Those who take up writing as a profession often have fewer restrictions than thinkers who are bound to religious and academic institutions (although in many cases they too are at the mercy of their publishers). Versatile writers have the freedom to explore different fields, sometimes under different pseudonyms. Prior to the modern era these have usually come in the form of essayists. During the European Renaissance writer Giovanni Pico della Mirandola had a reputation as an erudite scholar, whose quest to acquire and combine all of the available knowledge in the world led him to become one of the founding fathers of the philosophy of Renaissance Humanism — culminating in his revolutionary essay Oration on the Dignity of Man. English Renaissance writer Thomas Browne wrote independently and authoritatively on subjects as diverse as medicine, religion, philosophy, botany, archaeology, falconry, music and mathematics and his contemporary Michel de Montaigne of France demonstrated a similar versatility and erudition through his famous collection of essays.

  Authors of fiction often display an incredibly wide-ranging knowledge that becomes essential to the formation of the stories they tell. Russian writer Leo Tolstoy’s skilful synthesis of religion, history, warfare, politics, art, literature, economics, agriculture, society and philosophy in his novels (particularly War and Peace) has made him one of the most acclaimed writers of all time. Other such synthesisers in the literary world include Englishman Aldous Huxley and the Italian Umberto Eco who have each demonstrated an exceptional understanding of multiple subjects through their literary works, although some of them, like Asimov, have of course made their own contributions to multiple fields in their own right.

  The best ‘histories of the world’ tend to be written by polymathic historians who successfully curate various domains — whether geographic, cultural, economic or scientific. Tenth-century Arab historian Al-Mas’udi, for example, wrote The Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems — a chronological account of world history that combined multiple Islamic sciences. Thirteenth-century Tunisian historian Ibn Khaldun produced one of the best works of historical synthesis of all time — the Muqqudimah. Essentially an encyclopaedic thesis on the many facets of the rise and fall of human civilisations, it skilfully incorporated core elements of philosophy, history, theology, economics, political theory, sociology, natural science and geography and in the process formed a new scholarly discipline — social science. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Will Durant’s aim was to unify the various facets of history, which he felt had become increasingly fragmented by the twentieth century. This culminated in his multivolume historical masterpiece, The Story of Civilization, in which he tries ‘to see things as whole, to pursue perspective, unity and understanding through history in time. . .’ Jacob Bronowski brought together his proven knowledge of mathematics, physics, biology, philosophy and literature to explain the historical ‘Ascent of Man’ through his ground-breaking book and TV documentary series of the same name.

  Educators

  In 47 bce Julius Caesar appointed Marcus Terentius Varro — famously quoted by Quintilian as ‘the most learned of the Romans’ — to ov
ersee the public library of Rome. Before this, Varro studied in Rome and Athens and served as a soldier and politician in Pompeii. His Nine Books of Disciplines became a model for later encyclopaedists and was exemplary for its use of the liberal arts as organising principles, identifying them as grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, musical theory, medicine and architecture. Subsequent writers used Varro’s list to define the seven classical ‘liberal arts of the medieval schools.’

  Not content with being a mere generalist, Varro was keen on making his own contribution to Roman scholarship. He eventually produced 74 Latin works covering an extremely wide breadth of knowledge, many of them making outstanding contributions to science, linguistics and history. His compilation of the Varronian Chronology was a major accomplishment in chronological history, which included short biographies of over 700 notable Greeks and Romans. In De Re Rustica, an encyclopaedic book on agriculture, Varro speculated that contagion from stagnant water might affect a person’s health — a theory later attributed to and scientifically proven by sixteenth-century scientist Girolamo Fracastoro. De lingua Latina (On the Latin Language) is impressive not only as a linguistic work but also as a source of valuable incidental information on a variety of subjects.

  Before Varro, the great educators of the ancient world were sages who derived their knowledge from both experiential and metaphysical sources. Many of them had a general wisdom, which applied itself to many areas of teaching. Confucius, for example, was an encyclopaedic teacher of history, poetry, government, propriety, mathematics, music, divination and sports — who himself was ‘in the manner of Socrates, a one-man university’ during the Zhou Dynasty. They thus became trusted sources of knowledge on a range of practical matters relating to everyday life. Thiruvalluvar, the Tamil poet of ancient India, wrote the Thirukural, an influential set of ethical and practical maxims including matters of Virtue (family affairs, self-control, faithfulness), Wealth (employment, manliness, learning) and Love (courtship, beauty, intimacy). In similar fashion, Greek philosopher Epicurus wrote 300 works of ‘self-help’ advice regarding all aspects of practical life including his On Love, On Justice, On Nature and On Human Life.

  As wisdom left the lips of the great sages in ancient history, knowledge (factual and otherwise) began to develop and spread sporadically. A new group of educators around the world, like Varro, then began to gather and organise this knowledge in the form of encyclopaedias. By virtue of knowing, compiling and sharing, these encyclopaedists have traditionally been some of the most influential educators in history. The nature of their erudition and sheer range of knowledge confirm the best encyclopaedists were indeed polymaths. They would compile, edit (and sometimes themselves contribute) an exceptionally wide variety of entries on people, places, events, objects and other phenomena.

  Many others followed in this tradition. Roman encyclopaedist Aulus Cornelius Celsus, compiled a comprehensive encyclopaedia which included all the main aspects of Roman knowledge, containing entries on medicine, agriculture, warfare and law. Only one volume, De Medicina, has come down to us, but commentaries from Celsus’ contemporaries suggest that he had a knowledge of all other matters relating to Roman life of the time. Tang Dynasty bureaucrat Du You spent 36 years compiling the Tongdian — a 200-volume encyclopaedia that included all of the known knowledge, separated into Food and commodity, Examination and advancement, Government offices, Rites, Music, Military, Penal law, Local administration and Border defence.

  Photius, the powerful ninth-century patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Constantinople, was best known for his compilation of the Biblioteca — a monumentally wide-ranging collection of extracts and abridgements of 280 volumes of classical authors. French polymath Vincent of Beauvais produced the Speculum Maius (or ‘The Great Mirror’); the most widely read encyclopaedia in the Middle Ages. It was a compendium of all the knowledge of the Middle Ages in three parts: the Speculum Naturale (natural sciences), Speculum Doctrinale (practical knowledge) and Speculum Historiale (History of the known world). Chinese statesman and encyclopaedist of the Sung dynasty Li Fang compiled the other most widely read encyclopaedias of the Middle Ages: the Four Great Books of Song. The encyclopaedic tradition was particularly prevalent within European Church scholarship in the Middle Ages. Saint Isidore of Seville, one of the greatest scholars of the early Middle Ages is widely recognised as being the author of the first known encyclopaedia of this period, the Etymologiae (around 630), in which he compiled a sizable portion of the learning available at his time, both ancient and modern. It was the most popular compendium in medieval libraries and was printed in at least 10 editions between 1470 and 1530, showing Isidore’s continued popularity into the Renaissance.

  With such a vast production of knowledge in the first few centuries of Islam — not to mention the preservation of Ancient Greek learning — much of its compilation, organisation and dissemination was done by polymaths. The Egyptian Mamluk Al Nuwaiyri compiled a 9,000-page 30-volume encyclopaedia, translated into English recently as The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition. It catalogued the known world from the perspective of a fourteenth-century litterateur. Entries ranged from medieval moon-worshiping cults, sexual aphrodisiacs and the substance of clouds to buffalo milk cheese and the nesting habits of flamingos. Similarly, a century later, Egyptian scholar Al Siyuti wrote some 500 books on topics as varied as medicine, language, law and Islamic theology, essentially compiling and organising the various branches of Islamic knowledge in fifteenth-century Cairo.

  In the sixteenth century, German Calvinist cleric Johann Heinrich Alsted compiled a seven-volume encyclopaedia over two decades by himself. And then during the French Enlightenment, philosopher Denis Diderot was the editor-in-chief of one of the most acclaimed encyclopaedias of all time, the Encyclopédie. Diderot, through his masterpiece, intended pour changer la façon commune de penser, to ‘change the face of common thought’ through a synthesis of a vast amount of human knowledge. The Encyclopédie is now considered to be a major representation of French Enlightenment philosophy, and Diderot himself consequently revered as one of the important philosophers of that era.

  But by the 1800s, the exponential increase in available knowledge had outstripped the capacities of the individual encyclopaedists. The 1805 supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica acknowledged that ‘no man, however astonishing his talents and intense his application, can ever reasonably expect to be a walking encyclopaedia.’ Today the introduction of digitally communal encyclopaedias such as Wikipedia has displaced reliance on individual polymaths for this function. But their existence worldwide throughout history has always been critical in the compilation and dissemination of knowledge.

  Whilst encyclopaedists were educators in that they compiled and codified knowledge, teachers and professors were educators in that they (whilst in some cases contributing to knowledge itself) were effective deliverers and transmitters of knowledge to the wider world through academies, universities and other places of learning. As the encyclopaedias had done in the form of books, academies and universities soon began to organise knowledge and its teachers into compartmentalised subjects, seemingly distinct from one another. But many of the earliest academic educators taught a wide range of subjects. Plato, in his academy, for instance, used a universal method of philosophical enquiry which led him to teach (or investigate with his students) a range of topics that would today be considered completely unrelated. And later under the Romans, Hypatia headed the Neoplatonic school in Alexandria where she taught mathematics, astronomy and philosophy and was considered a leading authority on each.

  Whilst most pre-Renaissance teaching was done through religious establishments such as monasteries, dedicated universities continued to exist in other parts of the world, including in West Africa. Here, the Songhai Empire succeeded the Mande dynasty and expanded by the fifteenth century to become one of the biggest-ever Muslim empires — covering over 1.4 million square kilometres at its peak. On
e of its foremost intellectuals, Ahmad Baba al Timbukti — a scholar of law, theology, grammar and anthropology — was head of the world-famous Sankor University for 32 years. He was famously known to have had a personal library of around 1,600 books — a remarkable feat given that the total amount of published books in the whole of pre-Gutenberg Europe was probably less. This was considered ‘a modest collection’ compared to some of his fellow scholars of the time. Remarkably some 700,000 books gathered during this period of Timbuktu scholarship have survived.

  In the eighteenth century, Maria Gaetana Agnesi became the first woman professor at a university. She was appointed by Pope Benedict XIV to the chair of mathematics, natural philosophy and physics at the prestigious University of Bologna. Agnesi was a mathematician, physicist, philosopher, theologian and polyglot who was recognised as a prodigy for her ability to learn Italian, French, Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, German and Latin at an early age. She published Propositiones Philosophicae, a series of essays on philosophy and natural science.

  With the rise of the modern university in Europe after the eighteenth century, secular academic thinkers began to emerge as archetypal examples of the modern educator. Nineteenth-century scholar William Whewell was one of the first wholly ‘academic’ polymaths in modern Europe. Based at Cambridge University (as Master of Trinity College), he made significant contributions to theology, various sciences, history, economics, law, architecture, education and philosophy. The ‘polymathic professor’ in early twentieth-century Britain was then typified by Bertrand Russell, whose knowledge of politics, history, language, mathematics and religion (primarily Christianity) as well as various branches within philosophy — best demonstrated by his magnum opus A History of Western Philosophy — cemented his position as one of the leading all-round, comprehensive philosophers in modern history.