Ardiana Osmani
Seminar 126G/01
Professor: Teddy Chocos
Everyone is intelligent in one way or another
Intelligence is perceived in various ways from people. Some people consider that only the
people who finish education are intelligent. But, is a chess player or a guitar player intelligent? Of
course, they are. Some people say that only the high educated class of people is intelligent. Often
they compare with taxi drivers saying that a taxi driver knows only to drive. Well, that’s one kind of
the perception of intelligence in my opinion, because a driver has to be careful and conscious in
order not to cause and accident.
Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard University, explains the idea about ‘multiple
intelligence’ in a unique perspective. According to him, the idea of intelligence is an abstract
definition or a different way of understanding him. Through his examples he shows that people
cannot be judged through their outside appearance by guessing if they are intelligent or not. For
example, Gardner says; “Certain parts of the brain play important roles in perception and
production of music”. The example shows that each part of the brain has a role and plays it
according how a person can receive or perceive it. However, The Seven Intelligences are illustrated
by examples need to be accepted by people in order not to judge only by one of the seven
intelligences. For instance, only a musician is intelligent or only a person who speaks five languages
is an intelligent.
The outside appearance sometimes can confuse us by prejudging that a person is smart or
not smart. The interpersonal intelligence and the intrapersonal intelligence are two of the seven
intelligences by Gardner.
The Interpersonal intelligence according to Gardner is a format of people’s behavior. In this
term this makes us understand that society behaves according to the national culture.
To support his idea that people behave according to the society, for instance, the children act how
they parents did teach them. There were two girls of 5 year old, they were acting so different. The
one that her family educated that she’s not supposed to do things if her mother says no; she wasn’t
really doing anything without her mother’s permission. Whereas the other one even when her
mother was screaming don’t take that dirty spoon she didn’t listen to her. So I found out that her
mother had probably to teach her since she was very small that dirty things should not be touched
by her.
The intrapersonal intelligence or “A Sketch of the past” as was called in the article, explains
the internal aspects of a person. This shows how people understand their selves. It refers to
understand the strength and the weakness of oneself and to avoid an inflated sense of selfimportance. Gardner points out that; “both interpersonal and intrapersonal faculties pass the test
of an intelligence. They both feature problem-solving endeavors with significance for the individual
and the spices.” This proves that the individual behavior is very important and that shows in one
way or another intelligence of a person.
On the other hand Isaac Asimov, is the most beloved science fiction author of all time, in his
article about “What is Intelligence, Anyway?” he explains that we as human being shouldn’t judge
people by their appearance. His example about the joke of the “deaf-and-mute guy” tells that
everybody has something special that can be taken as part of their intelligence.
To conclude, both of them, Gardner and Asimov, showed their view that we as human
should not prejudge the others if they are or are not intelligent by one way of seeing the
intelligence. Everybody has their own way of being intelligent, no matter if they are a doctor,
musician or a chess player.