The Triadic Approach to Polymathy

Polymathy involves the capacity to get and use knowledge in multiple domains productively, and I’m thrilled to see the interest in the term mushrooming on the internet.

For those new to my approach, I go beyond the idea that #polymathy is only accumulation of #knowledge in multiple domains. I think this popular dictionary definition conceals that the productive enactment of polymathy in fact entails three dimensions:

1. Breadth, which refers to the range and diversity of what you know. It expands the set of ideas, perspectives, experiences, and problems you can draw from.

2. Depth, which refers to how far you develop knowledge in a given area. It allows you to move beyond superficial familiarity toward understanding, skill, and expertise.

3. Integration, the most elusive but perhaps the most important of the three because it turns polymathy from a passive accumulation of knowledge to engage one’s capacity to connect, organize, and mobilize what you learn, know, and experience. It is what allows learning and activity in different places to become mutually useful, even when seemingly disparate or in apparent contradiction for most people.

In sum, full range polymathy must emerge from the conjunction of these three dimensions: expanding #horizontally through breadth, developing #vertically through depth, and structuring #relationally through integration.

That is the Triadic Approach to Polymathy.