Other Books by Howard Gardner

The Quest for Mind (1973; second edition, 1981)

The Arts and Human Development (1973)

The Shattered Mind (1975)

Developmental Psychology (1978; second edition, 1982) Artful Scribbles: The Significance of Children's Drawings (1980) Art, Mind, and Brain: A Cognitive Approach to Creativity (1982)

... ----------------------

FRAMES OF MIND

The Theory of Multiple Intelligences

HOWARD GARDNER

Basic Books, Inc., Publishers

NEW YORK

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Gardner, Howard.

Frames of mind.

Includes bibliographical references and index. L.. Intellect. I. Title.

BF431.G244 1983 153 83-70765

ISBN 0-465-02508-0

Copyright © 1983 by Howard Gardner Printed in the United States of America Designed by Vincent Torre 1098765

For Ellen

...... -----------------------

PBE,FACE

NOTE ()N THE PROJECT ON HUMAN POTENTIA)..

ix xiii

Part I

Background 1. The Idea of Multiple Intelligences

:2. Intelligence: Earlier Views

J. Biological foundettons of Intelligence 4. What Is an Intelligence?

3 12 31 59

Part n

The Theory

5. Linguistic Inteihgence 73

6. Musical Intelligence 99

7. Logical-Mathematical Intelligence 128

8.. £.:eatial Intelligence 170

9. Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence 205

10. the PersonalIntelligences 237

[L A Critique of the Theory of Multiple Intelligences 277

12, 'rn~ Socialization of Human Intelligences. through Symbols 299

vii

Contents

Part III

Implications and Applications 13. The Education of Intelligences

14, The Application of Intelligences,

331 367

NOTES INDEX

395 429

viii

'PREFACE,

As indkated In the following note about the Project on Human Potential, .thics book had an unusual genesis. It came to be written because of the foresight and generosity of a foundation that sought clarification of a-eonQepHn its charter=-vhuman potential." The executive director of the foundation. Willem Welling, and the chairman of the board of directors, Os"~p'r van Leer, conceived of a project to investigate human potential and-asked several of us at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard to respond to their daunting challenge. The project drew together a. group of colleagues from diverse backgrounds who have had! the c;hance fa collaborate over the past four years. The story of that C011abe>Tlltion:will be related elsewhere, but it is germane to record that it lIas enabled me to range more broadly and to reflect more probingly about a gamu.t of issues than I could have done without the flexible s"!PFlort of th!3 van Leer Foundation. My first and greatest debt is to Willem Wemng, Oscar van Leer, and their associates at the Bernard van Leer Foundation.

I wish to thank my senior colleagues on the Project on Human Potenual=-Gerald Lesser, Robert LeVine, Israel Scheffler, and Merry White for their continuous and continuing stimulation, constructive criticism, and support. Our interactions have genuinely changed the way .in which I think about many issues and have helped materially with the writing and rewriting of this book. From the first, I have been hles.sed, with incredibly talented, insightful, and hard-working :research assistants, and I want to thank them individually and mention their area of contribution to this study: Lisa Brooks (genetics), Linda Levina (psychology), Susan McConnell (neurobiology), Susan Pollak (history and! philosophy), William Skryzniarz (international develop-

Preface

ment), .and Claudia Strauss (anthropology). In a day when scholarship is Iittle esteemed among talented young persons, they have shown exemplary indepen-dence and dedication: I am pleased that they are ali. pursuing careers in the world of scholarship. Other members of the Project to whom I am indebted in various ways include Leonie Gordon, Margaret Herzig, Francis Keppel, Harry Lasker, and Lois Taniuchi. For theirgenerous administrative support, I wish to thank Deans Paul Ylvisaker and Blenda Wilson and, more recently, Deans Patricia Graham and Jerome Murphy.

Whi:le, in the first instance, this book is a report on human potentials as viewed from a psychobiological perspective, it also represents an effort to pull together findings from two lines of research which I have been pursuing over the past dozen years. One line is the development, in normal and gifted children, of symbol-using capacities, particularly in the arts-a line I have been carrying out at Harvard Project Zero. The other has been the breakdown of cognitive capacities in indi-. viduals suffering from brain damage, which I have been pursuing at the Boston Veterans Administration Medical Center and the Boston University School of Medicine. A conception of different intelligences-the "frames of mind" of my title-has emerged as the most appropriate and comprehensive way of conceptualizing the human cognitive capacities whose development and breakdown I have been studying. I am grateful to have the opportunity to present in this volume the theoretical framework that has emerged from these efforts at synthesis, and to offer some tentative suggestions about the educational implications of the framework. And I want to take this opportunity to thank the various agencies that have generously supported my research over ten years: The Veterans Administration, which granted me a sabbatical so that I could concentrate on this synthesis; the Department of Neurology of Boston University School of Medicine, the Medical Research Division of the Veterans Administration, and the National Institute of Neurological Diseases, Communication Disorders and Stroke, all of which have supported my work in neuropsychology; and, for their support of the work of my colleagues and me at Harvard Project Zero on normal and gifted children, the Spencer Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, the Markle Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Education. A large debt is owed to that innovative institution the MacArthur Foundation, which furnished me much needed security during a perilous period for researchers in the social sciences.

I want finally to express my appreciation to those individuals who

x

...... ------------------------

Preface

have made partictrlar contributions to this book. A number of my colleagues rea:d the entire manuscript, or large sections of it, and offered eiXtreIl\ely helpful comments. I wish to record my appreciation to Tom Carothe-rs, Mkna@l Cole, Yadin Dudai, David Feldman, Norman Geschwind, Linda Levine. David Olson, Susan McConnell, Sidney Straoss, William WaU, and Ellen Winner. Dolly Appel served as principal word processor aNd supervisor of the preparation of the physical manuscript and aid so in a skillful, helpful, and cheerful manner which I greatly admir,t.d. Jasmine Hall generously offered to prepare the index. Linda Le-vine aided me with numerous aspects of the physical and conceptual .manuscript and undertook with great ingenuity and energy the preparation of dw extensive reference notes. I don't know what I would

j ••

have done with-out her intelligences! And as with my two most recent

books, my .oolleagues at Basic Books were an unfailing source of support: I especially thank my editor Jane Isay and her assistant Mary Kennedy, as well as Judith Greissman, Janet Halverson, Phoebe Hoss, Lois Shapiro, and Vincent Torre-and the proofreader,Pamela Dailey.

I wisbrte thank the following individuals and publishers for per~ rnittin,g roe to reproduce copyrighted materials:

To Dr. Roge-r N. Shepard for permission to reproduce the spatial rotation figure from R. N_ Shepard and J. Metzler, "Mental Rotation of llnre€-Dimensional Objects," Science, Vol. 17l, pp. 701-703, Fig. I, 19 february 1971.

10 Academic Press for permission to reproduce a drawing by Nadia from L. Selie, Nadia: A Case of Extraordinary Drawing Ability in an Autistic Child, 1977.

To the American Association for the Advancement of Science for permission to reproduce the spatial rotation figure from R. N. Shepard ana J. Metzler, "Mental Rotation of Three-Dimensional Objects," Scienae, Vol. In, pp. 701-703, Fig. I, 19 February 1971.

To Harper & Row for permission to quote material from Kenneth Clark, Another Part of the Wood: A Self-Portrait, 1974.

To John Murray Publishers, Ltd. for permission to quote material from Kenneth Clark, Another Part Of the Wood: A Self-Portrait, 1974.

To A. D. Peters & Company for permission to quote passages from Stephen Spender, The Making of a Poem, 1955.

Cambridge, Massachusetts June 1983

Xl

N'OTE ,ON THE PROJECT ON HUMAN POTENTIAL

In 1929, the- Bernard van Leer Foundation, concerned with supporting appropriate innovations i.necl!ucation to benefit the disadvantaged, a-sked the 'Harvard Graduate School of Education to assess the state of sdentific knowledge concerning human potential and its realization and to summarize the findings ion a form that would assist educational policy and praetice throughout the world. Proceeding from this general Cijmettlve, a group of. scholars at Harvard has over the past several ;years been engaged in research activities that explore the nature ·and tealization of human potential. Activities sponsored by the Project on Human Potential have included reviews of relevant Iiteranrre in history, philosophy, and the natural and social sciences, a series of international workshops 'on conceptions of h.um.an development in diverse cultural traditions, and the commissioning of papers and books ..

The present volume is the first in a series to be issued under the aegis of fhe Harvard Project. Focusing on human intellectual potentials, it "draws not on~y on research in the psychological sciences, but also on, recent work in the biological sciences and on findings about the development and use of knowledge in diverse cultural settings. T11.e other volumes, to be issued within the next two years, include a treatment of the philosophical aspects of the concept of potential by 'Is~<l,el Scheffler, a global sWdy of conditions for human development in comparative and historical perspective by Robert A. LeVine and Merry r. White,and a collection of essays related to cultural themes in human development by distinguished international scholars with whom the Harvard Project has been collaborating.

The Hague Netherlands june 1983

xiii