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Abstract
In the theory of multiple intelligences, Howard Gardner proposes a scientific justification for a more pluralistic pedagogy, while denying that science can determine educational goals. Wearing an educator's hat, however, he favors a pathway in which students come ‘to understand the most fundamental questions of existence … familiarly, the true, the beautiful, and the good.’ Yet Gardner claims to exclude the realm of values from an intrinsic role in any of the intelligences; furthermore, the intelligences have no role to play in respect to values. The best we can hope is that some people are able to yoke these ‘scientifically and epistemologically separate’ realms together. This dichotomy is detrimental to Gardner's educational goals. An integral conception, acknowledging both that normativity is essential for the operation of intelligence and that pursuit of values is itself an intelligent undertaking, would better support Gardner's educational vision with a more comprehensively pluralistic view of knowing.
Notes
Notes
1. ‘Whether [people] adhere to that culture's value system or go on to revise it in positive or destructive ways is a personal decision, not an exercise of that computational system I call (an) intelligence’ (Gardner, Citation1999b, 68).
2. Shearer is referring to an earlier, though not significantly different, definition than the one quoted (Gardner Citation1993).
3. Gardner comments, ‘Of course, I deem as intelligences those abilities that are valued within a culture, but I do not myself pass judgment on the validity of those evaluations’ (1999b, 67 n).
4. See Arendt (Citation1981, II, 31–110).
5. This is a re-publication of the original chapter.
6. Gardner acknowledges this distinction when comparing biology with history, as elsewhere he more generally distinguishes between the concern with generality in the sciences with that for particularity in the arts and humanities. He points out that the discipline of history is not to be confused with its object of study (2006, 162).
7. This is an allusion to the etymological origins of ‘intelligence.’
8. ‘I have always conceded that, in the end, the decision about what counts as an intelligence is a judgment call and not an algorithmic conclusion. So far, I am sticking to my 8½ intelligences but I can readily foresee a time when the list could grow, or when the boundaries among the intelligences might be reconfigured’ (Gardner Citation2006, 91).
9. In considering the status of spiritual intelligence, it is instructive that Gardner is concerned not to have his theory hijacked by the ‘lunatic fringe,’ the likes of Jim Jones and David Koresh. However, if how the intelligences are used is an extra-intelligential matter, one can expect the same lunatic fringe to arise in other areas, without thereby jeopardizing the status of the intelligence. It was alchemists seeking to turn lead into gold who yet laid the foundations for modern chemistry. The great preponderance of physicists working for the military defense complex may from some respectable points of view be considered just as lunatic. But Gardner's very identification of some values as less acceptable than others suggests that there is a realm of rational (though hopefully, not rationalistic) discourse available to assist us in sifting through competing claims, in the realm of overt values as much as in the realm of covert ones. It is also of interest that Gardner's rejection of these ‘value intelligences’ is despite his conviction that ethical concerns are central to his studies of leadership and what constitutes ‘good work’ (Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi, and Damon Citation2001), the sources of those ideal human types that frame his heuristic, and that, indeed, the ‘Respectful’ and ‘Ethical Minds’ are to be privileged over the cognitive (Gardner Citation2005).
10. Rather close to home, Waterhouse claims in ‘Multiple intelligences, the Mozart Effect, and emotional intelligence: a critical review’ that ‘the empirical evidence reviewed here does argue that the human brain is unlikely to function via Gardner's MI’ (Citation2006, 213).
11. He notes that, ‘within other cultural traditions, there are abundant examples of the true (these would include folk theories about healing or traditional Chinese medicine)…’ (Gardner Citation1999a, 19).
12. At the same time, Gardner acknowledges the compatibility of his own and Goleman's educational values: ‘Those of us who seek a fuller view – who speak of personal intelligence, emotional intelligence, moral intelligence, wisdom – are all declaring that skill in the literacies and facility at a certain kind of problem-solving are not enough. We seek individuals who not only can analyze but also will do the right thing; individuals who will be admirable not only as thinkers or creators but also as human beings’ (Citation1999a, 248).
13. I wonder, as he currently studies ‘good work,’ what he thinks might follow from the fact that a person is a doctor for how that person ought to behave in relation to her patients?
14. Gardner, as may be expected, acknowledges this influence: ‘At some point in their professional lives, many psychologists become involved in educational issues. Such engagement is especially likely in the United States, where educational theory and practice have been heavily influenced by contemporary work in psychology’ (2006, 19). ‘Since the rise of psychology and other social sciences in the latter part of the nineteenth century, educational policy makers have sought to base their recommendations on emerging knowledge about human beings…. Contributing strongly to educational policy and practice have been the models of human learning that have emerged in psychology. Each of the principal models has antecedents that date back to earlier philosophical positions, but each has been reinforced by researchers who draw on data and scientific ways of thinking’ (216).