Notes by Howard Gardner
I recently read the Science Magazine discussion of Anil Ananthaswamy's "The Man Who Wasn't There". This spurred me to write the following response. The original article can be found here.
Of the various intelligences, intrapersonal intelligence—understanding of self—has always been the most difficult to describe, conceptualize, and measure. After all, who is qualified to judge how well a person understands himself or herself? I often quip that only Person X’s therapist can assess how well Person X understands Person X. But of course that assumes that the therapist has good INTER-personal intelligence. Anyway, this book is one of the first attempts of which I’m aware that provides neurological and psychological insights into the understanding of self. It does not answer any questions, but it raises some of the right ones.