The term philosopher encompasses several things. A philosopher is a critical thinker, theorizer, speculator and dreamer. In the best cases even an innovator. When looking at these characteristics (if you will), one might see how they would serve as a solid foundation for any discipline really. I am personally having a hard time coming up with a field where an expert would not need the skills of critical thinking and innovation in order to solve problems and refine the art of whatever they are engaged with. This is why comparably a lot more philosophers were historically known as polymaths than what we see today. In other words, one was not merely a philosopher, but could additionally write extensive treatises on subjects like music and notation, logic, mathematics, astronomy, and the list goes on.

A prime example of this was Al-Farabi (870-950), a muslim philosopher and scientist, one of the most prominent of his time. In addition to establishing syllabus for young philosophers-in-training which I will touch on later in this post, he dove into subjects as linguistics and music with expertise and precision, pioneering in these areas as well. He was of course not the only polymath known to history. As mentioned before, it was rare to be specialized to the extent that people are today. Is there a reason why we have stopped producing these multidisciplinary thinkers who are capable in more than one area?

Puritanical boundaries between disciplines are largely accepted in our world’s intellectual atmosphere. It is more or less set in stone how different subjects ought be approached, and there is arguably less room for experts from other fields to put their fingers into nitpicking those of others. I do believe there is a reason for why this used to be easier in the medieval times. It is said that philosophy is the mother of all sciences, which means that there used to not really be a distinction between different disciplines; they all had to do with familiarizing oneself with the nature of reality, just from different perspectives. It is hard to raise multidisciplinary thinkers, as true skillfulness in just any area of knowledge might take more education than can be fit into a single lifetime – let alone doing this in several disciplines. With the sheer amount of information available to us at all times in any chosen subject, it might be unreasonable to expect not only mastery of several fields of study, but additionally expecting new discoveries and horizons in said fields. Perhaps if we would be able to eliminate the distraction that has come with the overflow of information, we could consider a new generation of polymaths a possibility.

Al-Farabi’s syllabus for an education to become a capable philosopher could be seen as an answer to how polymaths come to be. This very detailed and multi-faceted program seems to rest on the notion that knowledge is cumulative, and that true wisdom requires a strong foundation to flourish upon. By acquiring degrees in different fields in a specific order, the young thinker (this program should preferably be started with when around 10 years old) first looks inward with subjects like linguistics and logic, and then turns the focus outward on the more abstract, finishing with metaphysics. This syllabus is designed to set the student straight and to make them capable of innovation and profound research in any given subject. The boundaries and limitations between different fields of study are purely illusory, as the same skillset is required across all of them in order to make advancements.

The only problem is that in order to complete Farabi’s ambitious plan, one has to dedicate around 30 years of one’s life, and possibly also have to figure out a way to travel back in time to be young enough for the starting age to be optimal. It is obvious to me that this would only be possible for a tiny handful of people, especially considering the environment of today’s society where survival requires quick results and entering into the work force as fast as possible to benefit the common good (or in alternate wording, benefiting the market as consumers. Yay capitalism!) is borderline obligatory. But maybe we do not need an army of polymaths. Perhaps, a small bunch who have the possibility to put time and effort into several disciplines would suffice in filling the intellectual gap we seem to have.