On Fri, 2007-10-26 at 14:16 -0700, Jim Devine wrote: > Intelligence is > multidimensional.
Not to say chimerical. I always think the history of words is interesting. "Intelligentia" in Latin isn't a Classical word; it first shows up after 1000 AD with a number of meanings -- including "meaning" itself, i.e. the 'sense' of a word or phrase; an incorporeal being or angel; even an alliance or entente (cf. a 'mutual understanding'). Intellego, the Classical Latin word it comes from, just means 'understand'. From 'inter' and 'lego', to read or see right through something. The pseudo-scientific sense of "intelligence" as a generalized, fixed, quantifiable physical property of individual nervous systems is so modern it's not even in the OED. I don't know whether it was Spearman or his idol Galton who first came up with it, though I bet it's the former. Galton used old-fashioned terms like "genius". But once the practice of binning and sorting people became an occupation it needed a jargon of its own, naturally. There is such a thing as professional pride. I suppose we should be glad they borrowed a more or less respectable word for the purpose, instead of coming up with some Greco-Latin horror like polymechanopotence. > Howard Gardner sees intelligence as "the capacity to > solve problems or to fashion products that are valued in one or more > cultural setting." Using this definition and empirical work, he came > out with seven different kinds of intelligence: Seven is better than one. And ten thousand, or a million, would be better yet. Hockey intelligence. Poker intelligence. Then we could just replace 'intelligence' with 'good at' and have done with the whole bogus concept.
