Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of boxes
- Preface to the expanded paperback edition
- Acknowledgments
- 1 A bombshell in a letter box
- 2 Beyond the Flynn effect
- 3 Towards a new theory of intelligence
- 4 Testing the Dickens/Flynn model
- 5 Why did it take so long?
- 6 IQ gains can kill
- 7 What if the gains are over?
- 8 Knowing our ancestors
- 9 The art of writing cognitive history
- 10 About GUT: the grand unification theory of intelligence
- 11 Howard Gardner and the use of words
- Appendix I Tables
- Appendix II Declaration in a capital case
- References
- Subject index
- Name index
11 - Howard Gardner and the use of words
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of boxes
- Preface to the expanded paperback edition
- Acknowledgments
- 1 A bombshell in a letter box
- 2 Beyond the Flynn effect
- 3 Towards a new theory of intelligence
- 4 Testing the Dickens/Flynn model
- 5 Why did it take so long?
- 6 IQ gains can kill
- 7 What if the gains are over?
- 8 Knowing our ancestors
- 9 The art of writing cognitive history
- 10 About GUT: the grand unification theory of intelligence
- 11 Howard Gardner and the use of words
- Appendix I Tables
- Appendix II Declaration in a capital case
- References
- Subject index
- Name index
Summary
Maradona was a soccer genius. (Anyone who watched him play)
Readers have asked me to express my views on Howard Gardner. In 1983, he set a prerequisite and eight criteria for calling something an intelligence:
Prerequisite: A set of skills that solve problems and progress from the elementary to the advanced. The skills are not a set list. Those who have them often create new performances and discover new problems hitherto unknown. The skills must be socially valued.
Criterion 1: Autonomy on the physiological level, that is, it has it own locus in the brain so that trauma to that area can destroy or spare it.
Criterion 2: Autonomy on the psychological level, that is, we find individuals who excel in one area of competence even though they do not in others.
Criterion 3: It is triggered by a specific input, that is, by certain kinds of internally or externally presented information.
Criterion 4: It should have a developmental history, that is, it matures by stages.
Criterion 5: It should have evolutionary antecedents.
Criterion 6: Its autonomy is confirmed by tasks that differentiate it from other intelligences.
Criterion 7: Its autonomy is confirmed by measurement, that is, instruments that rank people for its distinctive tasks indicate that it does not correlate (to a significant degree) with other measured intelligences.
Criterion 8: It is susceptible to being expressed in a symbolic system.
Applying these criteria, Gardner (1983) derived seven intelligences:
(1) Linguistic. Mastery of the meaning of words and the syntax of language, with an ear for sound and an eye for imagery important for those few who become stylists or go on to write literature or poetry. Both they and rhetoricians must be aware of how language affects emotions.
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- Information
- What Is Intelligence?Beyond the Flynn Effect, pp. 203 - 219Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007