"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." -Aristotle
For those unfamiliar with the name, here's a brief background: He was an ancient Greek philosopher who was a student of Plato (who was taught by Socrates) and later a tutor to Alexander the Great. What Aristotle actually wrote is a little lost-in-translation, the quote above is a paraphrase from his writings in Nicomacheon Ethics. After a little online digging, I found a more direct translation from the blog Sententiate Antiquae, "It is the mark of an educated person to search for the same kind of clarity in each topic to the extent that the nature of the matter accepts it ... Each person judges well what they know and is thus a good critic of those things. For each thing in specific, someone must be educated to be a critic; to be a critic in general one must be educated about everything".
I thought it would be important to share what Aristotle had written in his books for us to contemplate and to provide a little more context. In my interpretation of it - one must learn about everything and in doing so can provide something to the conversion being held. In the pursuit of knowledge, one must discuss and entertain thoughts that they may not support so that they can better their concepts and develop their (counter) arguments. You cannot dismiss or tell someone they are wrong until you learn their argument on a subject. Only then could you challenge their thought process and why they are thinking of a problem in a certain way.
In today's world, I find that people are dangerously quick to dismiss not just the topic, but the entire person because they don't accept the thoughts that this person (who they recently cancelled) without engaging them in the intellectual arena. If those who normally find themselves quick to unfollow/block attempt to open up to debate, they often provide minimal in their counter-argument and abruptly leave the conversation. It seems as if these people take on the mentality of "you're either on my side or you're not and if you aren't then you should be censored", which is absolutely ridiculous. How will we ever reach a middle ground and understand opposing viewpoints if we don't talk to each other and entertain thoughts that we do not accept without ever discovering what those thoughts are.
Gad Saad, evolutionary psychologist, was a recent guest on the Joe Rogan Experience [Ep. 1557] and had mentioned, "An intellectual is one who can go into different landscapes and engage in great conversations". He goes on to mention being a polymath and how academia promotes learning an area of specialized expertise instead of being involved in anything that you have interest in.
A polymath is someone whose knowledge spans a significant number of subjects.
I'm not sure when academia become heavily orientated towards specialization but it has bled into all sorts of levels in our society through public education and universities. Students are instructed to learn a specific field and when they graduate, that's all the know; they're useless outside their field and that's how society would like them to feel. I believe that society would greatly benefit from a polymath approach, what detriment could it possibly pose to a civilization? Our brightest minds should be fully supported in challenging a vast multitude of subjects. They should not automatically defer to specialized experts, they should be able to question those opinions which would only result in the strengthening or dismantling of an idea.
Prior to listening to the mentioned podcast, I was unaware of the critic Christopher Hitchens and had taken some time to search his thoughts. Here is a quote that I found fitting, "There can be no progress without head-on confrontation" and I believe this to be ideal in today's thought-landscape. We should spend more time competing with others and their ideas to allow the best ones to prevail. We cannot do this if we are quick to judge and dismiss. We cannot do this is none of us feed our brains with knowledge from a buffet of topics which will in turn allow us to be critics of everything. We should be teaching our future intellects how to think about concepts so that they can engage in all ideas, instead of hyper-focusing on a specific subject.
When the majority of individuals gain the ability to become critics of everything by entertaining the thoughts of those they support and oppose, society will be filled with educated Minds. When our society is full of polymaths, the human civilization will experience a new type of progress.
Do not be quick to judge others, be open to all possibilities and confront them. Start talking to people we disagree with and have our intellect spar in the arena.
Keep your Mind curious
