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Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences Howard Gardner Chapter 1: The Idea of Multiple Intelligences

In this chapter, Gardner outlines his basic aims in writing this book, and how he came about formulating these theories. He begins with the scene of a young girl taking an IQ test, and what kind of impact such test can have on her life, making a case for the value western society has put on an hour’s worth of questions. He also paints an international contrast of different skills valued in different cultures, and how there is no real measure of some forms of expertise. He states that the “problem lies less in the technology of testing than in the ways in which we customarily think about the intellect and our ingrained views of intelligence. Only if we expand and reformulate our view of what counts as human intellect will be able to devise more appropriate ways of assessing it and more effective ways of educating it.” The purpose of the book, he states is to formulate a view of intelligence, which incorporates a wide range of abilities. In the following chapters a new theory of human intellectual competences that will outline the classical view of intelligence. In order to for us to understand this he will have us consider the traditional view, where it came form and how is became so “entrenched” in our society. He speaks of the centering on mental powers in the roots of our civilization, from the rise of the Greek city-state. He introduces us to two schools of thought in the study of intelligence, the “hedgehogs”, and the “foxes”. The hedgehogs view intelligence as one piece, and the foxes believe that intelligences are fragmented into several pieces. He states that this is still a continuing debate about “parceling intellect into parts”. “The time may be at hand for some clarification about the structure of the human intellectual competence” Gardener states, and the “confluence” of the large body of evidence from a variety of sources in this purpose of this book, to argue that there is evidence and existence of several “relatively autonomous” human intellectual competences, abbreviated in this book as “human intelligences”, his “frames of mind”. He states his belief in some intelligences, a set number not fixed, but intelligences that are “relatively independent of on another, and that they can be fashioned and combined in a multiplicity of adaptive ways by individuals and cultures”. Gardner describes his research methods, reviewing work from a large group of unrelated sources, listing a spectrum of different groups of people from normal adults children to idiot savants and brain-damaged individuals. The remaining paragraphs of this chapter go to state his assignments of this book. Number one being his desire “to expand the purviews of cognitive and developmental psychology.” In one direction this will be focused on the biological and evolutionary roots of cognition, and the other direction will be looking at the cultural variations in cognitive competence. Number two he states his “wish to examine the educational implications of a theory of

multiple intelligences”, as well as how an individual’s profile can be used to further their educational experience and opportunity. Thirdly, He would like to inspire educationally oriented anthropologists to develop how these competences can be fostered in different cultural environments, determining if these theories can translate to other cultures. Finally Gardener would like to reach other influential individuals responsible for the “development of other individual”. To aid such individuals he has developed a framework for educational situations centered on his idea of multiple intelligences, and hopefully “discourage those interventions that seem doomed for failure and encourage those that have a chance for success.”

Chapter 2: Intelligence: Earlier Views In this chapter Gardner gives us a basic understanding of how people began to study the brain and thought. He discusses the sciences of psychology and philosophy, Jean Piaget and the more contemporary approaches of the “Information-Processing” and the “Symbol Systems” approach. This chapter begins with the introduction of the “phrenology” of Gall, which is the theory that the variations in skull shape and size can determine the mental capacity of the brain inside of it. However Gall was the first of modern scientists (he practiced in the late 1700s) to stress that different parts of the brain mediate different functions. The beginnings of the science of psychology are discussed, stating the lack of connection with psychology and the groups who where conducting experiments with the human brain, showing a desire for psychology to distance itself from physiology and neurology. Gardener discusses the strand of science psychology that searched for individual differences, the individual profiles of ability and disability. A leader in this field in the 1800s was Sir Francis Galton of England who developed statistical methods that made it possible to rank human beings by abilities, both physical and intellectual. Adding the belief to involve language and abstraction to a more accurate assessment of human intellect was Alfred Binet. With colleague Theodore Simon, they developed the first tests of intelligence. He discusses the general thought of nearly all scholars today in the excessive enthusiasm over intelligence in the field of psychology. Gardener spends the next few pages discussing Jean Piaget and his cognitive development theories. Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist, beginning his career around 1920, who began as a researcher working in Theodore Simon’s laboratory. His research began when taking interest in the mistakes the children made during testing. His belief was that it wasn’t the accuracy of the child’s response, but the reasoning the child invokes during the problem

solving process. He developed a radically different and powerful view of human cognition. Gardener goes in detail to describe the theory of Piaget and the concept of the successive stages and operations. He describes Piaget to be the theorist of cognitive development, however even considering the weaknesses of his theory. Piaget has painted a” redoubtable picture of development, it is still only one sort of development”. He states that the broad outlines of development remain of interest some of the specific details are simply not correct, and that there is evidence that children can move through the stages faster than the theory allows. The next few page or so describe the current form of study of the intellect named the “information-processing psychology”, or approach. Also know as cognitive science, the “information processing psychologist uses experimental psychology methods to investigate the task of Piaget and cognitive theorists. Gardner’s main problem in this approach is its lack of contact with the operation of the nervous system, and its little interest in the open-ended creativity that he feels is crucial to the highest levels of human intellectual achievement. This brings us to Gardener’s school of thought, the “symbol systems” approach. This theory focuses on neglected areas of human faculties in intellectual theory: biology and higher levels of creativity. He states along with his colleagues, not to discard totally Piaget’s methods, but to focus them not only on linguistic logical and numerical symbols but also upon a full range of “symbol systems encompassing musical, bodily, spatial and even personal symbol systems”. In this theory he breaks down the cognitive accomplishments occur in a range of domains. Some are universal, some cultural, and some unique to an individual or small group. The domains operate independently from one another. He looked at two extremes, prodigies as well as brain damaged individuals. He places importance of the nervous system and its effect on the intellect. In this section of the chapter, Gardener also discusses his colleges and the area of research that they cover in relation to this approach to understanding intelligence. He ends the chapter with his statement that the most valuable information is most likely to come from a deep knowledge of the nervous system.

Chapter 3: Biological Foundations of Intelligence

The phenomena to be explained; Gardener states that a comprehensive science of life must account for the nature, as well as the variety of human intellectual competences. The first issue he says involves the flexibility of human development. He believes that the appropriate educational interventions in development of intelligence are crucial to produce a different range and depth of capacities. “Educational efforts must build upon a knowledge or these intellectual proclivities and their points of maximum flexibility and adaptability”.

Genetics is an obvious concern with studies of the intellect, however lessons in this area are far from direct, and Gardner states. The fundamental consideration of the DNA is the relationship between the genotype and the phenotype to any individual behavioral and intellectual profile. However, he states that we know very little when it comes to the formation of complex traits such as musical ability or so on. He discusses the hypothesis of how combinations of genes can create greater potential for high achievement, however they are far from established facts. He discusses the problems of reading into genetics when looking at intelligence, however being the genetic pool being so diverse as it is; it is more likely to prove a range of human intelligences accurately. Much more than genetics, the neurobiological perspective and findings are much closer to the phenomena of the cognition and the mind. Gardener outlines his approach concerning the flexibility of development and the identity of human competences. He states that most of his research is done through animals; vertebrates and invertebrates although his concern is with the capacities of humans. He is mostly influenced in this area by the work of Hubel and Wiesel. These scientists developed the understanding of the visual system in mammals. He was also influenced by and the works of Notebohm, Marler, and Konishi and their work on the singing capacities in birds. In this first part of the chapter Gardener outlines the idea of plasticity in the neurological functions and development in the human, its possibilities and limitations. Plasticity is more profound early on; bring the principle of the critical periods of development into consideration. Another point in this is the concept he calls uncommittedness, which is the fact that large portions of children’s cortex remain uncommitted and available for “diverse” use during early childhood: therefore if one section is damaged then the others could possibly compensate, and the child could still develop almost normally. He goes into depth about the concepts of cellular neurological development and the implications of adaptation in cases of deformity or injury. Gardener describes different avian species and the methods of song development they embody. The study of bird song is beneficial to him be cause it “provides one intriguing model for how organisms come to master a highly particular kind of skill through the interplay of environmental stimulation, exploratory practice and predisposition to develop certain structures of the nervous system.” He feels that one day the principles involved in understanding the bird song process can be applied to the cognitive and symbolic systems of human beings. Gardener also evaluated the studies of Eric Kandel and the Aplysia Californica, a simple mollusk. The mollusk, with a small number of neurons is capable of relatively complicated reactions to outside stimuli. His findings can begin to bridge the gap

between behavior and biology. “Through the studies of such unlikely populations as song birds and California mollusks, we have received promising insights into the ways in which forms of learning are manifest at the nervous system, cellular and biochemical levels.” From this Gardner goes on to give us and understanding of the organizational structure of the nervous system, and how we should view it at two different levels, a fine grained molecular structure as well as the grosser or molar structure. He outlines both types in the next few pages. On the molecular level, he describes the structure of the brain cells of the cerebral cortex as being organized into columns or modules. For his purposes, he is interested in the “appearance and location of different neural units” can provide the identity of its valued processes and functions. On the molar level, it is known that different parts of the brain have specific cognitive function, and this is what Gardener backs up in this section. He discusses the research with brain-damaged individuals, and the effect of brain damage to specific areas of the brain and how this can be adapted or not, depending on the stage of development. Gardener goes on to describe the evolution of thought and experiment in relation to brain organization and cognitive psychology, and the come to a general consensus for brain localization. However, he states that “even if localization proves to be the most accurate description of the nervous system, it remains possible that there may still be very general problem solving devices as well as considerable ‘horizontal’ structure-with perception, memory, learning and the like cutting across heterogeneous contents”. Stating that it is high time that scientists need to anayilize the nervous system and its implications for cognitive process. In the conclusion, Gardner sums up the chapter in a more generalized way, stating that according to findings in neurology there is increasing evidence for the existence of functional units in the nervous systems. These columns serve specific functions and suggest a biological basis for specialized intelligences. At the very end of this chapter he states the burden of this book is” to bring to bear the insights culled from these various windows on cognition, cultural no less than biological; to see which families of intellectual competence, examined together, make the most sense.”

Chapter 4: What is Intelligence?

Having given us a background on intelligence and cognition, Gardner begins this chapter with a disclaimer; since no science is absolute and completely fallible, especially the behavioral sciences, and that it is impossible to ever come up with a complete list of all

human intelligences, it still needs to be done in light of new developments in science and research. In moving on to the intellectual competences he asks us to consider two important topics; what are the prerequisites for intelligence, and what are the actual criteria by which we judge an individual’s competence? For Gardner, intelligence must entail a set of skills of problem solving, “enabling the individual to resolve genuine problems or difficulties that she or she encounters and, when appropriate, to create an effective product, and must also entail the potential for finding or creating problems, therefore laying the ground work for the acquisition of new knowledge”. In his prerequisites for the theory of multiple intelligences, it is important that it represents a spectrum of abilities used by all human cultures. He then goes on to review the eight criteria of intelligence in his theory, however admitting that there is no objective way of measuring or determining their existence, only a “artistic judgment” can be made. He lists them as: potential isolation by brain damage; the existence of idiot savants, prodigies and other exceptional individuals; an identifiable core operation or set of operations; a distinctive developmental history, along with a definable set of expert ‘end of state’ performances; an evolutionary history and evolutionary plausibility; support from experimental psychological tasks; support from psychometric findings, and lastly susceptibility to encoding in a symbol system. The remainder part of the chapter deals with what intelligence is not, and its further definition by Gardner. He speaks of it as a “know-how” as opposed to a “know-that” idea, for example the know how being I know how to ride a bike, as opposed to the know-that idea would be I have read how to ride a bike. Another point he makes is the importance he will stress in this book of the combination of intelligences to complete culturally relevant tasks. The final statement he gives in this chapter is that these intelligences he will outline are mere fictions, and that “nature brooks no sharp discontinuities or the sort proposed here”. He separates and defines them in order to “illuminate scientific issues and tackle pressing practical problems.”

Chapter 5: Linguistic Intelligence

Gardener begins his review of Linguistic intelligence by an overview of how poetry defines this form of intelligence. In the poet one can see the core operations of language at work at it’s finest. He outlines four aspects of the linguistic knowledge that have proved important in human society: First is the rhetorical aspect of language, the ability to use language to convince others in a course of action. This can be seen in the persuasive skills of lawyers

and politicians. Secondly is the mnemonic potential, the capacity to use their tool to help remember information. Thirdly is the role in explanation, such as teaching and learning through language, such as oral instruction and employing verse. The fourth is the potential for language to explain its own activities, “the ability to use language to reflect upon language, to engage in ‘metalinguistic” analysis. To convey the idea of these four facets of language is the goal of this chapter. Following this, he goes to describe the development of the poet/writer and the steps of exercises he must take to reach mastery, the ultimate goal of creating his or her own framework for expressing their words and ideas. He quotes Karl Shapiro in saying “Genius in poetry is probably only the intuitive knowledge of form.” Gardner spends a majority of this chapter discussing the detailed relationships of the brain to linguistic capabilities, and the abnormalities and adaptations, which come with certain brain lesions or damage. He also discusses the evolution of language, and his belief that is more likely to have come together from a number or discrete communication systems, as opposed to the belief it was created instantly. In conclusion, he emphasizes language as the core product of the vocal tract and a message to the human ear, and understanding human language and its representation in the brain must be understood with its relationship between the audiory-oral tract. Gardner is not stating that linguistic intelligence is the same as auditory-oral intelligence, because the two have been proven to exist without the other. This brings him to introduce the 6th chapter on musical intelligence. What the two forms have in common is the fact that they are not tied to the physical world, as is the case in spatial and logicalmathematical intelligences.

Chapter 6: Musical Intelligence

This chapter is about the way musical intelligence becomes a part of a person’s life, especially as children. Children begin to express themselves musically from infancy with babbles that evolve into something more sophisticated as months and years go on. The child’s choice on what to do with their musical intelligence as they grow up depends greatly on their cultural influence as well as the influence of the adults in their lives (such as teachers, parents, etc). An example of cultural influence mentioned by Gardner is the Anang of Nigeria, who by age five can sing hundreds of songs, play many different percussion instruments, and perform intricate dance movements (page 110). This chapter also discusses the evolutionary and neurological aspect of musical intelligence, for example the use of instruments in the Stone Age and the science behind knowing what parts of the brain are being used for musical intelligence.

Chapter 7: Logical –Mathematical Intelligence

Logic and mathematics are a natural part of the dev...