Universal person , encyclopedist , polymate ( polymathēs , Greek πολυμαθής ) [1] , a Renaissance man [2] is one whose intellectual abilities, interests and activities are not limited to one area of knowledge and the only area of their use, as well as an individual who achieves tangible practical results in all areas. This universalism in its brightest manifestations implies a fruitful combination of different or several humanitarian and natural sciences or their areas, convincing results in various exact sciences, together with a contribution to philosophy , visual arts , architecture , fiction , poetry , medicine and many other areas of scientific, artistic and writing creativity. Many ancient and medieval scholars were polymats in the modern sense of the phenomenon. History knows quite a lot of scientists or artists whose talent was manifested both in science and art.
Formally speaking, the concepts of “universal man” ( Latin homo universalis ), “encyclopedist” may refer to someone who knows a lot (as interpreted, for example, by Vladimir Dahl’s dictionary ), but the term “ scholar ".
Notes
- ↑ The term polymath was first recorded in written English at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Harper, Daniel. Online Etymology Dictionary (2001). The date of circulation is December 5, 2006. Archived on March 23, 2012.
- ↑ Renaissance man | philosophical concept | Britannica.com
Literature
- Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary . - M .: Soviet encyclopedia . 1989 ISBN 5-85270-030-4
- Modern Western philosophy. Vocabulary. - M .: Publishing house of political literature . 1991 ISBN 5-250-00734-1
- Essays on the history and theory of the development of science. Science studies: problems and research. - M .: Thought . 1969
- Glazychev V. L. Gemma Copernicus. The world of science in art. M. Soviet artist . 1989 ISBN 5-269-00059-8
- Introduction: Greek Science in Context / Science and Mathematics in the Culture of Hellas (in English). Rihll / Science and Mathematics in Ancient Greek Culture. Edited by CJ Tuplin and TE Rihll with a foreword by Lewis Wolpert. Oxford. 2002 - Oxford University Press .