In Reply to: The Transcendental Temptation posted by Perry on September 22, 2004 at 14:54:14:
Howard Gardner first introduced the idea of multiple intelligences. It addressed many observations about people who may be deficient on some mental attributes but overabundant on others. The movie Rain Man is one of many that presented this type of cognitive situations.
One of the problems with this type of theories is the time that requires its validation. Contrary to what many people think, a theory is a work in progress that not every body buys. Many people are coming out after Gardner's different intelligences.
The problem with this line of thinking is that by deciding that there is a certain type of intelligence affects the way people will deal with it. More importantly, it affects the way others deal with the individual seen as lacking critical thinking possibly establishing the fact that a person cannot overcome it.
Of the original multiple intelligences (H. Gardner) the closest to this is the intellectual intelligence but it also creates discriminatory problems.
I'd say that Paul Kurtz is advancing a pro-intellectual elitist agenda. Not in vain he is the chair (and very famous) of the Philosophy department at SUNY at Buffalo.