The editorial director of
Intelligent Life magazine, Edward Carr, laments the growing scarcity of polymaths—people of encyclopedic learning or those who know a lot about a lot. “Polymaths were the product of a particular time, when great learning was a mark of distinction and few people had money and leisure,” he says. “Their moment has passed, like great houses or the horse-drawn carriage.”
Polymaths possess something that monomaths like most of us don’t, Carr explains, so while most scientists devote their careers to solving the everyday problems in their specializations, it is often from polymaths with a fresh eye or from another disciple where innovations originate. “The question is whether their loss has affected the course of human thought,” he says.
Read Edward Carr’s “The Last Days of the Polymath” in Intelligent Life now!
