REVIEW ARTICLE. The Concept of Intelligence. JOHN WHITE. Language, Intelligence and Thought. Robin Barrow, 1994. Aldershot: Edward Elgar pp. ix+ 132.
Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 29, No. 3, 1995
REVIEW ARTICLE
The Concept of Intelligence JOHN WHITE Language, Intelligence and Thought. Robin Barrow, 1994. Aldershot: Edward Elgar pp. ix+ 132. E29.95
This is a book about the concept of intelligence and the place of intelligence in education. Its main thesis, linking the three terms in the title, is as follows. Intelligence is a matter of being able to think well, which is in turn by and large co-extensive with mastery of verbal language. The capacity to think well has to do not with expertise in a certain area, but with ability displayed across a whole spectrum: ‘an intelligent person is one who has broad understanding of certain fundamental ways of thinking that structure our way of looking at the world’ (p. 57). These ways of thinking belong to eight basic traditions of study: scientific, philosophical, mathematical, historical, aesthetic, moral, literary, religious. Intelligence is not, contra some psychologists, an innate ability, but can be cultivated by developing certain linguistic capacities across these domains. The development of intelligence in this sense gives us our central educational aim: ‘the goal of the educational process should be the development of individuals who can recognise logical distinctions, who can deal with different kinds of question in the appropriate manner, and who are imbued with the kind of understanding that history, literature, art, religion, ethics, science, mathematics, and philosophy can variously provide’ (p. 99). Surrounding and supporting this main thesis are discussions of the importance of being clear about such concepts as intelligence and ways of properly conducting conceptual investigations, critiques of inadequate accounts of intelligence both in psychology and in common understanding, fuller accounts of the ways of thinking embodied in the eight traditions and reasoned dismissals of other accounts of education which put less weight on these areas of study than on such things as selfexpression, self-esteem, vocational training or foreign languages. The book begins and ends with a discussion of whether four adult siblings, whose very different career interests and personal characteristics are displayed in some concreteness, can all be rightly called ‘intelligent’. Two of them are in the end debarred, despite the gardening skills and ready wit of the one and the business acumen and practical now of the other, because they lack the breadth of understanding required; while whether the other two are intelligent is left unresolved since the evidence is insufficient. I find this verdict on the siblings uncomfortable. No doubt it follows logically enough from the definition provided of ‘intelligence’, but this only makes me wonder whether this definition is not greatly out of kilter with how the term is usually understood. Having green fingers, a gift of repartee or a business sense would normally be taken as 0The Journal ofthe Philosophy of Education Society ofGrear Brirain 1995. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 11F and 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
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betokening intelligence in these domains. This is because intelligent behaviour is usually associated with the flexible and appropriate adaptation of means to ends and all three examples manifest this. It seems tough on the gardening brother or entrepreneurial sister to have intelligence denied them just because they are not academically adept across a wide range. If they are not intelligent, how shall we describe them? As ‘unintelligent’? “onintelligent’? Neither seems to fit. Unintelligent, or stupid, behaviour has to do with failure appropriately to harness the understanding one has to one’s ends, but neither sibling shows evidence of that. Neither, obviously, are they non-intelligent creatures, i.e. things incapable of means-end thinking like trees or boulders. My worries on these matters are not only about the siblings. On Barrow’s account very few people are intelligent - only those of a certain polymathic inclination. (Writing of the secondary school curriculum, he states that ‘the object should be to bring students to a point at which they can, with ease, pleasure, and engagement, read an Einstein, a Shakespeare, a Gibbon, a Plato, a St Augustine, a Gombrich, a Tolstoy, a Hawking, or a Russell’ (p. 123)). Perhaps the best we can do is to call everyone else ‘not intelligent’, bearing in mind that when we talk this way, we mean just that they lack this broad academic bent. We reach the conclusion by this route that the vast majority of, say, the British population, perhaps even 90 + % of us, are lacking in intelligence. Should we be alarmed by this? In one way, no, since we are merely drawing implications from somebody’s definition, which others might not accept. But as Barrow himself points out, ‘intelligence’ is a term of praise (p. 56). In its more ordinary connotation, of flexibly adapting means to ends, it is applicable to virtually everybody in one way or another, whether we are talking about the scholar, the plumber, the hockey-player, the primary pupil or the nurse. Nearly all of us possess this generally desired capacity in some field or another. Whether one can go further and say that we nearly all possess this as an (intellectual) virtue raises another issue. Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics Book VI) distinguished practical wisdom from mere cleverness on the grounds that the former, but not necessarily the latter, is directed to ends which are themselves desirable from the global perspective of eudaimonia. One can be a clever (i.e. intelligent) burglar or confidence trickster. That educators should be in the business of promoting intelligence or cleverness rather than the ampler disposition of practical wisdom is doubtful. Barrow’s idiosyncratic definition may lead to confusion, since ‘intelligent’in his sense may get snarled up with the commoner use of the term (or of near-synonyms like ‘clever’ or ‘sensible’ or ‘quick-thinking’ since the word ‘intelligent’ is not one that we have traditionally used much in everyday speech - at least until the rise of intelligence testing muddied the conceptual waters in all sorts of ways). His use of the term may also be a bit dispiriting, since so many of us seem to lack a quality whose possession we tended to take for granted. Although it was open to him simply to stipulate that he is using ‘intelligent’in the way he does, Barrow defends his analysis against counter-examples and counter-theories to do with animal intelligence for instance. He discusses the claim that animals can be intelligent despite not possessing the linguistic abilities essential in his own account. His rebuttal is brisk. ‘Now actually I have little to say about this view except that it is certainly wrong, as can be seen from what has already been said . . . if we observe some unknown animal doing various complicated things apparently intentionally, it has to engage in thinking with some set of symbols, some language. If we insist that it has no 6 The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 1995
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language, then it cannot proceed intentionally, and if it cannot proceed intentionally then it cannot be acting intelligently’ (p. 78). No reason is given as to why intentional action requires language, and on the face of it it does not always seem to do so. My cats can find their way through the cat flap to get at their Whiskas - and if the cat flap is locked they can miaow at the window to attract attention. All this looks very much like intelligent behaviour on the account of ‘intelligence’which links it to taking appropriate means to ends, yet cats do not have language. In any case, as I said above, there is no need for Barrow to try to cope with counterexamples. Without going into these complicated - and in the end unconvincing arguments about intentionality and language, there is a much speedier way of dealing with the animal objection: we do not know of any animal that is into such things as Plato, Einstein, Hawking, Tolstoy and so on across the eight categories. These mildly negative observations of mine - like most of the discussion in this review so far - have been mainly about linguistic practices and recommendations. A more substantive issue has to do with Barrow’s conception of education. This is very close to Paul Hirst’s account of liberal education worked out three decades ago and now categorically rejected by him. Like the earlier Hirst, Barrow sees competent thinking across a wide range of forms of understanding as the definitive achievement of the educated (or in Hirst’s case, liberally educated) person. Like Hirst, too, Barrow disassociates himself from charges of Clitism: he sees this as the educational destination not only of the gifted few, but of virtually everyone. Barrovian intelligence is not a given, but something to be cultivated, to be developed in us all. It is a pity that so much of the book is devoted either to linguistic points about how we use - or should use - the word ‘intelligent’ or to meta-linguistic points about how in general we should go about dealing with such matters, rather than to a defence of the view of school education which is at its core. Why is it important for every pupil to become a rational thinker in the eight areas? Barrow does say a little about this. He tells us, for instance, that this is a specifically human achievement (p. 79), that a liberal democratic society functions far more successfully if citizens are educated in this way (ibid.),and that it gives individuals greater control over their destinies (ibid.).All these claims cry out for further defence - which is not provided. Why does the fact that something is a specifically human achievement make it a good thing? Is the art of torture? The totalitarian state? What grounds are there for thinking that liberal democracy is best promoted by an exclusively academically orientated education of this sort rather than one which starts off from the desired qualities of a liberal-democratic citizen and works backwards to the intellectual, affective, ethical and other achievements which they entail or which are most likely to promote them? How exactly does Barrow’s kind of education give individuals greater control over their destinies? If the latter is our aim then, as before, the rational way of working out an appropriate education would seem to be by seeing in more detail what this aim brings in its train: what kinds of personal qualities does one need to be self-determining (courage? self-confidence? self-control? independence of thought?); and what kinds of knowledge (of options from which to choose one’s path through life? of the society within which one will be making one’s choices? of oneself?). I can see various ways in which these aims to do with liberal democracy or selfdetermination require students to understand something of science, history, literature, the arts and other of Barrow’s areas, but what I do not see is why these kinds of understanding should monopolise educational attention to the demotion of other kinds 8 The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 1995.
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of achievement, including other kinds of understanding. Barrow is dismissive of social studies, for instance, except in so far as they are used as a vehicle for developing such things as historical understanding or philosophical finesse (p. 100). But if we are taking as our starting point the aim of promoting a liberal democratic society, it seems crucial to give students a good grasp of how their own and perhaps other societies work and not only from a historical perspective. Barrow also says virtually nothing about desirable personal qualities in a student beyond kinds of understanding or other intellectual capacities. To be a good democratic citizen or controller of one’s destiny (as far as one can be), one needs a whole array of virtues and attachments - such things as self-confidence, self-control, various kinds of altruistic disposition, appropriate forms of trust and distrust, moral courage, patience, cooperativeness, friendliness, appropriate regulation of one’s bodily appetites, tolerance. . . . Schools as well as parents can help to cultivate these things: their goals need not and should not be exclusively intellectual. A final verdict on the book? Despite its directness of message, enviable accessibility and evident commitment to the point of view expressed, it left me thinking that its two linked topics, the nature of intelligence and the broad shape of a worthwhile school curriculum, cannot be wrapped up quite as quickly or as neatly as it tries to do - and certainly not in the same parcel. Correspondence: John White, History and Philosophy Section, Institute of Education, University of London, London WClH OAL, UK.
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