Honoring My Intellectual Lineage: Polymathy, Paradigm Shifts, and the Thinkers Who Shaped Me

Every mind is, in some way, a meeting place — a crossroads where ideas, experiences, and mentorship converge.

Today, I want to pause and honor a few extraordinary thinkers without whom my own work would not exist:

Thomas Kuhn, Robert Root-Bernstein, and Michèle Root-Bernstein.

Their ideas not only influenced me academically; they also helped shape how I see the nature of learning, knowledge, and human potential itself.

Thomas Kuhn and the Evolution of Knowledge

As a doctoral student, I studied the work of Thomas Kuhn closely.

His landmark book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, changed how I understood science — and by extension, truth itself.

Kuhn argued that science doesn’t just evolve by slowly stacking facts on top of each other.

Instead, scientific progress happens through paradigm shifts — radical breaks from old ways of thinking, moments when the existing framework can no longer contain new anomalies.

In Kuhn’s view, even science must remain humble, flexible, and willing to reinvent itself — or else it risks ossifying into dogma.

This perspective deeply shaped my worldview:

      •     Truth is not static.

      •     Knowledge must be alive to stay honest.

      •     Real evolution demands courage — the courage to think differently when the world demands it.

Without Kuhn’s work, I don’t think I would have fully appreciated the necessity of paradigmatic thinking, or seen polymathy for what it truly is: an essential tool for surviving and thriving in times of rapid change.

In a way, I often think of Thomas Kuhn as my academic grandfather — a foundational figure in the intellectual lineage that has shaped my path.

Robert and Michèle Root-Bernstein — The Real Pioneers of Polymathy Studies

While Kuhn taught me how systems of knowledge shift, it was Robert Root-Bernstein and Michèle Root-Bernstein who showed me how minds make that shift possible.

Robert Root-Bernstein is, without question, the founder of polymathy studies —

pioneering the investigation of how creative individuals think across disciplines and how polymathic tendencies drive innovation.

Together with his wife and collaborator, Michèle Root-Bernstein, he authored works like Sparks of Genius, which illuminate how habits of mind — observing, patterning, abstracting, analogizing — weave across fields and create new insights.

Robert and Michèle didn’t just study polymathy.

They lived it.

They demonstrated that interdisciplinary thinking is not a luxury or a quirk — it’s a deep structure of human creativity itself.

Personally, I’ve had the honor of presenting alongside Robert and Michèle at several academic conferences, and their generosity as mentors, colleagues, and friends has been a profound gift.

Their support encouraged me to go deeper into my own questions about polymathy — not just historically, but in the modern world.

In a way that feels both humorous and deeply meaningful to me, I often refer to Robert Root-Bernstein as my academic father — and by extension, Michèle as my academic mother.

My Own Small Contribution: Carrying Their Work Forward

If Kuhn was my academic grandfather, and the Root-Bernsteins my academic parents,

then my own work stands as a next generation in this lineage.

While Robert and Michèle Root-Bernstein focused largely on historical polymaths — figures like Leonardo da Vinci, Goethe, and others —my work has focused on contemporary polymathic individuals.

I have been particularly interested in:

      •     How polymathy manifests in the lives of living people today

      •     How it operates under modern conditions of hyperspecialization and technological acceleration

      •     And how it may be essential for navigating the paradigm shifts happening in our own era — from AI to consciousness evolution.

I see my contribution as a living extension of the Root-Bernsteins’ foundational work:

not replacing it, but carrying it forward into new terrain, where polymathy isn’t just a historical curiosity — it’s a survival skill for humanity’s future.

Gratitude and Forward Motion

None of us think alone.

We are all shaped, consciously or unconsciously, by those who came before us.

And it is with deep gratitude and humility that I acknowledge my own intellectual lineage:

      •     Thomas Kuhn, for teaching me that knowledge must evolve

      •     Robert and Michèle Root-Bernstein, for showing me how polymathy breathes life into that evolution

      •     And all the mentors, thinkers, and friends who have poured their ideas into the living river that carries me now.

If polymathy is a river, then I am simply one more bend in its long, evolving course — fed by brilliant tributaries, hoping to nourish those still to come.

Thank you, Bob and Michèle, for believing in this work.

Thank you, Thomas Kuhn, for showing me that revolutions of thought are not only possible — they are necessary.

May the river continue to flow.