Are We Too Specialized?

Knowledge, Truth, and Why Broader Can Be Better

The idea of specialization is almost as old as society itself. In The Republic, Plato discusses how it is in the best interest of the polis to place people into labor classes by their innate abilities. The highest of these classes, the rulers, should be philosopher kings; aristocrats trained to rule.

Adam Smith would give this concept a more modern expression, arguing that when the division of labor is introduced, there is a “proportionable increase” in output. The centuries of economic history after Adam Smith observed this would seem to vindicate this claim.

Over the past few hundred years, the capitalist system generally embraced by the world has lifted people out of poverty by the billions. Could this principle of specialization go too far? Could we, in some sense, become too specialized even for our own good?

It’s no secret that liberal arts programs are on the decline across the American education system. One can skid through the college without having to encounter the classics of Western Civilization. As anecdotal evidence, I took on average one philosophy course every other semester and was three credits shy from completing a minor in the subject. Instead, students opt to increase their starting salary potential by developing intensely a set of niche skills which they can use upon graduation to get a job. Programs are overwhelmingly focused on functionality, not knowledge. Paradoxically, this focus placing of functionality above knowledge may cost us both in the long run.

In his provocative book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, David Epstein argues that “range” or diverse expertise over various fields is significantly more important than specialization to the cultivation of any skill set. The approach of development by specialization may work with respect to activities involving closed systems where there is only a set number of possible moves (Chess is the example he gives) but will undoubtedly fail where the domain is more complicated and where the possibilities are not constrained by the nature of the game (consider Economics). Innovations are made not because someone poured themselves into a discipline and siphoned themselves off from other forms of knowledge, but because of connections made from one domain of knowledge to another. An example he cites is a recent study showing that Cardiac patients are healthier when their doctors who specialize in their illness are off at meetings. According to Epstein, the results of this can be best explained by the old adage: “To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” He writes:

“Interventional cardiologists have gotten so used to treating chest pains with stents-metal tubes that pry open blood vessels-that they do so reflixively even in cases where where voluminous research has proven that they are inappropriate or dangerous.” (12)

Highly specialized knowledge can push someone to understand everything in light of that field. If you overspecialize, or carry too strong an enthusiasm for one field, you may blind yourself to reality.

A.G. Sertillanges, in his book The Intellectual Life, makes this exact point.

“Can one study a piece of clockwork without thinking of the adjoining piece? Can one study a bodily organ without considering the body? Neither is it possible to advance in physics or in chemistry without mathematics, in astronomy without mechanics, and geology, in ethics without psychology, in psychology without the natural sciences, and in anything without history. Everything is linked together, light falls from one subject on another, and an intelligent treatise on any of the sciences alludes more or less to all the others.” (103)

All of the sciences, in one respect or another, seek the same thing: to understand that which is. There is no physics that contradicts reason, no mathematics that opposes economics, and no chemistry against history.

Because of this, the laws of physics would be true in the same manner that the principle of non-contradiction is true. Therefore, it is important to spend all of one’s time with one subject, but to compare, to broaden your horizons of understanding, knowing that whatever you study is participation in the one truth which exists.

Consider the development of Quantitative Finance. University of Chicago Statistician Jim Savage was poking around the University library looking for new textbooks on probability when he rediscovered Louis Bachelier thesis on Brownian Motion. Seeing the economic implications, he showed it to his friend, Paul Samuelson, who in turn used it as a bedrock of quantitative finance.

The world was not always this specialized. Several prominent thinkers have been trained in fields different from where their contributions lie.

Friederich Hayek, the Nobel laureate economist, had doctorates in law and political science. Benoit Mandelbrot, who also made great contributions to economics, was trained as a mathematician, not an economist. Mortimer Adler, who made great contributions to the Great Books program and the laymen’s understanding of philosophy, especially Aristotle, had a PhD in psychology. These are some among many examples, past and present, of people who were well-served by knowledge across many fields.

For practical considerations, consider taking up a new field of study. Many of the most prestigious colleges in the world publish their lectures and notes (and in some cases, exams) online. There are forums, videos, scores of books available for relatively cheap, if not free, for us to learn from. Most recently, there is the advent of AI Chatbots which, in my experience, can explain many more complicated topics in a very intuitive way.

Here’s a place to start.

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