The Essential Howard Gardner on Mind

For over half a century, Howard Gardner has studied the mind in its various shapes, forms, and operations, culminating in his best-known work, the theory of multiple intelligences. This volume compiles his most compelling essays on the conduct, contours, and complexity of the human mind. After introducing the thinkers who had the greatest influence on him, Gardner traces the multiple aspects of mind that he has illuminated: the development of cognition, notably in the arts; the breakdown of cognition under condition of brain damage; a probing examination of human cognition at its highest levels, including creativity, leadership, artistry, and “good work” (work that is excellent, engaging, and ethical) in the professions; and, most recently, our extraordinary synthesizing capacities as human beings. This fascinating book captures in one place the long and compelling arc of a major scholar’s contribution to understanding intelligence, thinking, and the development of the range of cognitive strengths.

Book Features:

• Presents Howard Gardner’s essential essays on mind over the course of his long and distinguished career.
• Traces the influences on Gardner’s own thinking, among them psychologists Jean Piaget and Jerome Bruner, philosophers Susanne Langer and Nelson Goodman, neurologist Norman Geschwind, and anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss.
• Shows how an understanding of human cognitive capacities and processes manifests itself in several domains, such as artistry, leadership, creativity, and excellence in the professions.

Howard Gardner, best known for his theory of multiple intelligences, is the Hobbs Research Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Among his numerous honors, Gardner received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship, the Grawemeyer Prize in Education, a fellowship from the John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Prince of Asturias Award in the Social Sciences, and the American Educational Research Association’s Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education Award. His books include The Essential Howard Gardner on Education.

"On display are the multiple intelligences of the world's leading theorist of multiple intelligences. The author of the essays in this collection is a towering polymath who also knows how to write graceful sentences while summarizing significant intellectual scenes in the developmental and cognitive sciences."
—Richard A. Shweder, Harold Higgins Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Human Development, University of Chicago

“Through deftly curated papers, we have a rare view onto a fully engaged mind responding to a changing cultural and social landscape over an intellectual lifetime. An essential resource for tracking a legendary career.”
—Sherry Turkle, Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science, MIT; author, The Empathy Diaries, Reclaiming Conversation, and Alone Together

"Howard Gardner’s work over the past four-plus decades is unequivocally among the most influential psychological contributions to education. This book takes readers on a journey through Gardner’s evolving thinking across his vast career, revealing both the timelessness and timeliness of his insights. Read it to know the work that built the field—and also to inspire generative reflections on what should come next."
—Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, director, USC Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education (CANDLE)

“Howard Gardner has long been one of our most lucid, wide-ranging, and influential thinkers about cognitive science, development, and education. This collection captures his distinguished career exceptionally well."
—Alison Gopnik, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley

“Over the years, Howard Gardner has made many striking contributions to the effort to understand the human experience of mind. He has moved us away from a monolithic model without sacrificing structure, and toward cultural variation without sacrificing basic features of human development. He cares about neuroscience but also about the whole moral person. This book enables one to grasp the breadth and depth of his contribution, and they are breathtaking.”
—Tanya Luhrmann, Albert Ray Lang Professor of Anthropology, Stanford University

Contents

Acknowledgments  xi

Introduction  1

Influences

1.  Jean Piaget: The Psychologist as Renaissance Man  7
The Philosopher’s Shadow  9

2.  Jerome Seymour Bruner: Cognitive Psychology Enters the Educational Arena  10
References  14

3.  Project Zero: Nelson Goodman’s Legacy in Arts Education  15
What of Goodman’s Legacy to Project Zero?  20
References  21

4.  Norman Geschwind as a Creative Scientist  22
References  25

Early Work

5.  Piaget and Lévi-Strauss: The Quest for Mind  29
References  41

6.  From Mode to Symbol: Thoughts on the Genesis of the Arts  42
References  50

7.  Note on Selective Imitation by a 6-Week-Old Infant  53
Judith Gardner and Howard Gardner
Reference  54

8.  Children’s Sensitivity to Painting Styles  55

Developmental Psychology

9.  Style Sensitivity in Children  59
Style Detection in the Adult  63
Problems  66
Relation to Cognition  67
References  68

10.  The Development of Metaphoric Understanding  69
Ellen Winner, Anne K. Rosenstiel, and Howard Gardner
Reference  71

11.  First Intimations of Artistry  72
Howard Gardner and Ellen Winner
The Enigma of Early Artistic Production  72
Early Metaphors  74
First Drawings  78
Patterns of Development in Literary and Graphic Realms  81
Portraying the Skills of the Young Child: A First Draft of Artistry  82
Two Facets of Artistry  86
References  88

12.  Developmental Psychology After Piaget: An Approach in Terms of Symbolization  89
Introduction: The Piagetian Enterprise  89
Critiques of the Piagetian Enterprise  90
Symbolization: A Starting Point  92
Relation to Other Lines of Inquiry  95
References  97

Introduction to the Study of Brain Damage

13.  The Contribution of Operativity to Naming Capacity  103
Abstract  103
Discussion  103

14.  Bee but Not Be: Oral Reading of Single Words in Aphasia and Alexia  105
Abstract  105
Findings  106
Reference  107

15.  The Comprehension of Metaphor in Brain-Damaged Patients  108
Ellen Winner and Howard Gardner
Discussion  110
In Sum  111
Acknowledgment  112
Reference  112

16.  The Stories of the Right Hemisphere: Missing the Point  113
The Stories of the Right Hemisphere  113

Introduction to Multiple Intelligences

17.  In a Nutshell  121
What Constitutes an Intelligence?  123
The Original Set of Intelligences  124
Newly Identified Intelligences  130
The Unique Contributions of the Theory  132
Conclusion  134
References  134

18.  A “Smart” Lexicon  135
References  137

19.  Artistic Intelligences  138
Reference  142

20.  Who Owns Intelligence?  143
References  151

Cognition

21.  Definition and Scope of Cognitive Science  155

22.  Scientific Psychology: Should We Bury It or Praise It?  157
The Emerging Disciplinary Topography  159
The Surviving Center  160
Whither Psychologists?  162
References  163

Heights of Cognition: Creativity

23.  Seven Creators of the Modern Era  167
The Problem  167
Two Promising Approaches  168
A Preliminary Definition  169
A Research Program  170
Where Is Creativity?  171
The Person  173
The Domain  173
The Field  174
Tensions Across Nodes  174
Developmental Perspective  175
Features That Characterize Creative Individuals  176
References  178

24.  Creativity: The View From Big C and the Introduction of Tiny c  179
Howard Gardner and Emily Weinstein
Background  179
The Twenty-First Century: Three Challenges  181
Emily  182
Toward “Tiny c”  184
References  186

Leadership

25.  Leadership: An Overview  189
What Is a Leader?  189
A Study of Leaders  191
The Intelligences of a Leader  192
Leaders Take Risks, Defy Authority  193
Leaders Try and Fail . . . and Then Try Again, Quite Possibly With a Different Tack  194
A Leader and Authenticity  195
Indirect Leaders: Creative Minds  196
Three Lessons  197
Defeat Is an Opportunity  198
Reference  198

26.  On Good Leadership: Reflections on Leading Minds After Three Decades  199
An Approach to Good Leadership  200
Reference  201

27.  Changing Minds: 80/20 and Five Rs  202
Mental Representations: The 80/20 Principle  202
1. Reason  205
2. Research  205
3. Resonance  205
By the Way: Rhetoric  206
4. Representational Redescriptions (Redescriptions for Short)  206
5. Resources and Rewards  206
6. Real-World Events  207
7. Resistances  207
References  208

Positive Uses of Mind: Introduction to Good Work

28.  Tanner Lecture #1: What Is Good Work?  213
References  224

29.  Tanner Lecture #2: Achieving Good Work in Turbulent Times  225
References  234

The Professions

30.  Compromised Work  237

31.  The Lonely Profession  248
With Laura Horn
Evidence of Professional Identity  249
Professional Stance  250
Why Don’t They Identify With Philanthropy?  253
Lonely Work  257

32.  In Defense of Disinterestedness in the Digital Era  262
Terminology  264
The Difference That a Half-Century Can Make  268
Enter the Digital Media  269
References  276

33.  The Future of the Professions  277
Autobiographical Reflection  277
Introducing the Susskinds  279
A Question of Values  281
References  282

Minds of the Future

34.  Five Minds for the Future: An Introduction  285
Disciplined  287
Synthesizing  288
Creating  288
Respectful and Ethical  289
Education in the Large  290
Reference  290

35.  Musings About a Synthesizing Mind  291
An Aside  294
References  295

36.  Some Further Reflections on the Synthesizing Mind  296
References  306

37.  Why the App Generation?  307
Howard Gardner and Katie Davis
Enter Apps  308
References  310

Miscellanea

38.  Human Potential: A Forty-Year Saga  313
References  319

39.  Had I but World Enough and Time  320
The Synthesizing Mind  320
Good Work: The Ethical Perspective  321
Intelligences  322
Education From the Cradle on . . . in the Anthropocene  323
Gratitude  323

Original Publication List  325

Index  329

Permissions  337

About the Author  339