A Gallery of Know-It-Alls - Joseph Epstein, Commentary Magazine
A Gallery of Know-It-Alls Epistemology, the theory and study of knowledge and how it is acquired, is unsatisfactory on the subject of the polymath, or the person of extraordinarily wide-ranging knowledge. Nor is it very helpful about what is required to be learned, or cultured, or knowledgeable, or even educated. May one call oneself learned without having ancient Greek and Latin, cultured without being able to read music, knowledgeable without knowing the history of China? As for being educated, given the state of the contemporary university outside its scientific departments, no one today c...
Source: commentarymagazine.com