New Books in Psychology Howard Gardner, "A Synthesizing Mind: A Memoir from the Creator of Multiple Intelligences Theory" (MIT Press, 2022)
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Jun 23, 2022 AI Snips
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Memoir Became A Study Of Synthesizing
- Howard Gardner describes transforming his memoir into an exploration of 'synthesizing' because MI didn't capture his own mind.
- He explains synthesizers collect broad information then weave it into coherent explanations for others.
Early Life Sparked By Family And A Textbook
- Gardner recounts childhood influences: a family refugee background, early reading, and an uncle who gave him a psychology textbook.
- Those experiences sparked curiosity and led him from history to psychology and a lifelong interest in the arts.
Mind As Multiple Specialized Capacities
- Gardner argues minds are better described as multiple relatively independent capacities rather than one general intelligence.
- He concluded human intellect functions like several specialized 'computers' rather than a single all-purpose one.