evils of specialization

Here is some food for thought:

It is noteworthy that modern Platonists, almost without exception, are ignorant of mathematics, in spite of the immense importance that Plato attached to arithmetic and geometry, and the immense influence that they had on his philosophy. This is an example of the evils of specialization: a man must not write on Plato unless he has spent so much of his youth on Greek as to have had no time for the things that Plato thought important. (p.132)

Bertrand Russell – A History of Western Philosophy

It seems we could take this thought in many directions. I have been thinking about Don Miller’s recent post about a false connection between knowing ‘right’ theology and having true relationship with God. Or another thought haunting my psyche lately, Paul’s exhortation to have it all but have not loved it to miss the point entirely and to actually not have ‘it’ at all (1Cor. 13).