Howard Gardner : the myth of Multiple Intelligences

All this shows how Gardner’s interest in mental development began. What about
symbol systems? How do they come into the story?

He was looking for a theory which did more than those of Piaget and Levi-Strauss to
explain innovation and creation, especially in the arts. His view was that symbol
systems provided the answer. „Symbol systems .. are the vehicles through which
thought takes place: by their very nature they are creative, open systems.’ (op.cit.:4-5)
Gardner worked closely on the role of symbols in art with his Harvard colleague
Nelson Goodman. As I’ve suggested, all this is highly problematic.

Gardner’s early intellectual biography throws light on his Frames of Mind, especially
the first five intelligences: linguistic, musical, logico-mathematical, spatial and bodily-
kinaesthetic. Of these, logico-mathematical intelligence is related particularly to
mathematics and science and its treatment follows Piaget’s scheme quite closely. The
other four intelligences reflect Gardner’s work in extending Piagetian
developmentalism into the arts: poetry is prominent in the chapter on linguistic
intelligence, music in the musical chapter, the visual arts in the spatial, mime and
dance in the bodily-kinaesthetic.

Until 1979 Gardner’s work extended Piagetian thinking into the arts. By 1983 it
broadened again, now into an overall theory of human intelligences. Why?

The van Leer Project

The answer has to do with the Harvard Project on Human Potential funded by the van
Leer Foundation in 1979. The Foundation

asked the Harvard Graduate School of Education to assess the state of scientific
knowledge concerning human potential and its realization and to summarize the
findings in a form that would assist educational policy and practice throughout
the world. (Gardner 1983: x)

Gardner’s task in the interdisciplinary team was to look at psychological, as distinct
from philosophical and anthropological, considerations. Frames of Mind was the first
publication from the team. It focused specifically on „human intellectual potential’
(1983:x) (my italics). This restriction appears to have been Gardner’s own choice.

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