Publisher's Synopsis
In Language, Intelligence and Thought, Robin Barrow decisively rejects the traditional assumption that intelligence is a 'given' capacity and contends instead that intelligence is developed by the enlargement of understanding.
Arguing that much educational research is driven by a concept of intelligence that has no obvious educational relevance, Dr Barrow suggests that this is partly due to a widespread lack of understanding about the nature and point of philosophical analysis, and partly due to a failure to face up to the value judgements that are necessarily involved in analysing a concept such as intelligence. If intelligence is to be of educational significance, it must be understood in terms that allow it to be educable. It thus becomes apparent in the course of this book that standard assumptions about, and approaches to, intelligence have little to tell us. Developing intelligence is a matter of developing understanding. This, in turn, is a matter of developing linguistic capacity and particularly the capacity to use the language of a number of traditional types of inquiry.
Written by a leading philosopher of education, this stimulating and controversial book offers a reasoned and extended argument in favour of an original view of philosophical analysis. It will be welcomed by students of education, philosophy and the philosophy of education alike as a stimulating and scholarly argument that firmly discards the traditional ideas about intelligence expressed in the educational literature.
