On Pedantry – A Cultural History of the Know-it-All

This is an entertaining and erudite study of what the offer calls the supremely annoying intellectual vice of pretentious and punctilious learning from the Greeks onwards ‘as a cultural script of improper intellectual conduct.’ The book traces patterns in the representation of pedantry through a series of illustrative chapters in different cultural context, starting with the Sophists in ancient Athens. Themes include charlatans, hypocrites, mediaeval scholastic theology, foolish humanists satirised by Erasmus, who style prevails over substance; then Montaigne on useless learning, the salon culture of 17th century France satirised by Molière (Les Femmes Savantes), and more modern portraits of effete elitists, mad scientists and pedantic professors. Importantly, the author shows how pedantry can be weaponised in struggles over ideas, social status, political authority, and beliefs. As a postscript, I am reminded of a story by Henry Sidgwick, who was in conversation with a German professor who wondered if there was an English equivalent to the German word ‘Gelehrte’. Yes, he replied, ‘Prig’ – a term that surely has some common ground with pedant.