Polymaths need to bridge that gap between the invisible and the tangible. After all, "zero" used to be invisible before Brahmagupta made it tangible.
Polymaths in Western Antiquity
Ancient Roman-Greek ethicist Plutarch (46-119 CE) uses the word "polymatheia" for the first time in Quaestiones Convivales (1) to describe a sister-goddess of Delphi's Polymnia, the [divine] "faculty of the soul which inclines to attain and keep knowledge." Polymnia was the muse of eloquent speech including rhetoric, the art of impressing minds with flawless arguments. Plutarch was an intellectual and a priest, a mystic, someone for whom the intangible matters. So, the experience of polymathy related to divinity or the quest for divinity back then. Etymologically, "polymath" means much knowledge/many wisdoms. Possessing much wisdom is possible only when existence peaks.
Only a millennium later does "polymath" reappear in European literature as a concept of transdisciplinary curiosity serving intellectual performance with von Wowern, the
author of De Polymathia Tractatio (1603), a German intellectual of "inconceivable vanity"
(2)
who was also suspected of plagiarism. We are not sure whether Da Vinci or Michelangelo labeled themselves "polymaths" but Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1476) certainly theorized the polymath's capacity to "do all the things he will." What you are witnessing here is called a
glissement de sens
in French. In the West, the definition of
polymath
veered from the capacity to acquire divine knowledge to intellectual performance.
Polymaths of the East
The East has made bragging about our intellectual excellence easy. History places the invention of mathematics, geometry, the zero digit, philosophy, and even religion in the East. Now does it mean that the internet, medicine, and all our technologically advanced societies are nothing but a vast operation of cultural appropriation, and we should all return to the Paleolithic until we're able to figure out our own sciences? Of course not. Brahmagupta (circa 598-670) was able to figure out "the cornerstone of modern mathematics and physics, plus the spin-off technology"(3) because zero, the void, or nothingness is a reality of Nature, decipherable by our senses whether we're born by the Ganges, the Congo, or Hudson River.
The Middle and Far East's track record of polymaths is overwhelming. The art of
avadhanam, for example, can be traced back to the
Natyasastra, a Sanskrit treatise on performative arts compiled between 500 BC and 500 CE. According to
Hermina Cielas, researcher at the Department of Oriental Studies in Jagiellonian University (Kraków, Poland):
"The Indian performative art of Avadhāna (attention, attentiveness) is based on the showcasing of the mastery of memory, creativity, retention, multitasking and task-switching as well as other cognitive abilities. It examines not only a person’s capacity to focus and respond simultaneously to multiple task demands given by questioners (pṛcchakas) and demonstrate outstanding memory skills, but also specialized knowledge." (4)
What's a polymath now?
The European Renaissance was a moment, an effect of three causes. First, Italy, which dominated the production of luxury goods, the banking system, and maritime transport between 1400-1600. Second, the East, especially the Ottoman empire, where those dyes, silks, and spices came from and were traded throughout Europe. Third, the ensuing cultural exchanges with the Levant. Creative flourishing–as well as extraordinary geographical explorations leading to the discovery of the Americas, for e.g– were bound to happen. (5)
Seven centuries later, "polymath" is a trendy word without much substance, as attested by this pot-pourri ("examples of polymath in a sentence"). Everyone wants to be a polymath. Or rather, be labeled as one. Modern scholars who place ancient Greece as the origin of Western civilization tend to forget that knowledge travels. Mass migrations or political invasions (like the many campaigns of Alexander The Great) impacted the West (6). This erroneous, dichotomized perception of history not only causes political tensions and metaphysical distress on a global scale, but also disinformation which has always been hard to fight, because somehow, disinformation is also power.
The best definition of a polymath, the one that was true in the past and even truer in the present is: a polymath peaks (provided there is such a thing as the end of knowledge). When Da Vinci was conducting autopsies and mapping cities and the human body, he was seeking a peak. When ancient Greeks worshiped Polymatheia, the giver of the boon of flawless intelligence, they were seeking a peak. Aspirant Yogis worship the Śakti through Sadhana because they seek a peak. On a quest for the absolute, much relative knowledge is bound to come. People observing that quest not knowing the root of it have found a name for it: "polymath."
What polymaths need
Being a polymath supposes you will not rest until you have found the truth, the absolute. This can take ages. Being a polymath requires freedom from traditional thinking which is why universities hardly detect or produce polymaths. Poet James B. Nicola explores this with a lot of wit in his short story. Polymaths need rigor and focus, a skill the academia is competent to give them though, while wealth, fame, hectic googling, social media parade, auto-hypnosis, new age or self-marketing never will.
Contrary to a popular hoax found in best-selling books, polymaths need specialization. If you need surgery and your butcher says he can operate on you because he is a polymath and has read many medical books, would you accept? We all want specialists when things get serious and life is a dead serious matter.
Polymaths need a reality check. The human mind IS limited by perception (molded with the experiences life causes you to have) and the mortal physical body. This certainly affects intellectual dexterity, imagination, and creativity. If polymaths are the sum of what their faillible intellect is capable to retain, then they aren't much after all, are they?
Polymaths need the Divine. Today, the divine is something to ignore or sell, a vague concept worthy of sterile debates; a doubt; a ritual chosen or inherited; a spirit conjured in awe; a feeling extracted under duress; and for some, the unfathomable reality. Regardless, divinity
remains
the symbol of what peaks.
Polymaths need to bridge that gap between the invisible and the tangible. After all, "zero" used to be invisible before Brahmagupta made it tangible. Because we've been able to amass countless information on the physical world, investigating what's intangible may be the final frontier.
Revue {R}évolution is a polymath review. We are children of Polymatheia, Knowledge, the goddess with many names. We believe intellectual excellence is achievable through humility, not vanity. Humility is uncomfortable. It implies surrendering to the unsounded, but rapture–and genius–can only happen there.
Murielle Mobengo
Bibliography/References
Serious and delightful resources to deepen your understanding with the polymath's spirit
(1) Moralia,
Quaestiones Convivales, Plutarch (circa 100 CE)
(2) On Johann Von Wowern
(3) On the zero digit and algebra
- Peter Gobets, founder of The Zero Project, a Dutch foundation researching the origins of zero in livescience.com
- Indian mathematician, astronomer (and obviously mystic and poet) on Britannica and unacademy a learning platform in India
- The Hindu-Arabic numeral system on LibreTexts mathematics & the LibreTexts libraries, a multi-institutional and open access education system supported by the Department of Education Open Textbook Pilot Project, the UC Davis Office of the Provost, the UC Davis Library, the California State University Affordable Learning Solutions Program, and Merlot.
- The history of writing by Denise Schmandt-Besserat, a professor emerita of Art and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
- Where did writing come from? The rise, fall, and rediscovery of cuneiform,
Getty Museum
(4) Avadhāna: Between Art of Attentiveness and Ritual of Memory, Hermina Cielas
👁
(5) Resources on the economy of Italy during the Renaissance & its cultural exchanges with the East & Africa
- Italy during the Renaissance, Lumen Learning Course, SUNY, open educational resources for faculty members.
- L'Italie, pôle de développement économique occidental, Universalis (French) 👁
- The economy of Renaissance Italy, Robert A. Goldwaithe, The University of Chicago Press Journals 💲
- Success and Suppression: Arabic Sciences and Philosophy in the Renaissance, Dag Nikolaus Hasse 💲
- Africa and the Renaissance, I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies
👁
(6) Consider, for example, the extraordinary vitality and universalism of Yoga and the spread of Eastern spiritualism in Europe over the ages: Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, Moses, and Laozi came from the East.
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