Transcript More intelligences? Existential or Moral

More intelligences?
Existential or Moral
Possibly, maybe, probably Howard
Gardner’s multiple intelligences
theory . . .
ummm . . . Existential?
 Individuals who
exhibit the
proclivity to
pose (and
ponder)
questions about
life, death, and
ultimate
realities.
Characteristics
 Spiritual concerns . . . in a
more personal, idiosyncratic, or
creative manner
 Concern with existential
matters
 Concern with state of being
 Concern with effect on others
 Concerns about the meaning
of life
 Inclinations toward meditation,
prayers, psychic abilities, etc.
Explanation . . .
 “ . . . The capacity to locate
oneself with respect to the
furthest reaches of the
cosmos—the infinite and the
infinitesimal—and the related
capacity to locate oneself with
respect to such existential
features of the human condition
as the significance of life, the
meaning of death, and the
ultimate fate of the physical and
the psychological worlds, and
such profound experiences as
love of another person or total
immersion in a work of God.”
 --Howard Gardner
QUESTIONS????
 Death is a funny thing. Nobody really knows what happens
when we die. For that matter, nobody even knows what
happens to make us live. All we really know is that we are
here (whatever that means?).
 Here we are, humans on this planet for many centuries, and
we have no idea what we're doing here, where we came from
or where we're going. Philosophers would be out of a job if
the answers to these eternal questions would be found.
 "What happens when we die?" How do you explain the
unexplainable phenomenon of life and death?
 Any of many explanations may be right, may be
wrong...nobody can know, and it really doesn't matter. What
matters is that, for those who need to have an answer, there
may be an answer...
 ...but it provokes more thought.
Classroom activities
 Discussion or reading
about the philosophical
underpinning of a field of
study
 Discussion of ethical
behavior
 Opportunities to discuss
the impact of one’s
personal behavior on
any field of study
Siddhartha Gautama
Mohandas Gandhi
Mother Theresa
Martin Luther
St. Thomas Aquinas
Homer
Aristotle
Deepak Chopra
Calvin (and Hobbes, Dad)
Confucius
Albert
Einstein
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Plato
Mark Twain
Socrates
His Holiness, the Dalai Lama
Existential VS Moral
 Questions of
existence can
be addressed
with or without
religious
influence.
 Gardner has
concluded that
morality as an
intelligence does
not meet the
requirements set
forth for an
intelligence.
Morality as intelligence??
 Gardner: “Morality is
then properly a
statement about
personality,
individuality, will,
character, and in the
happiest cases, about
the highest realization
of human nature.”
Morality . . .
 Gardner: “Many of the intelligences can be applied in
moral and immoral ways. For example, a skilled
surgeon, possessing great bodily/kinesthetic strength,
can purposefully choose to murder a patient. The fact
that he killed his patient was an immoral act. This
immoral act did not take away from his
bodily/kinesthetic strength. A politician, with selfserving motives, can use his/her interpersonal
strengths to manipulate voters or excuse immoral
behavior. Morality, in conclusion, is not an intelligence,
but can describe the application of intelligence.”