Naturalistic intelligence: what is it and what is it for?

Naturalistic intelligence was the eighth type of intelligence proposed by Howard Gardner.

The theory of multiple intelligences made known by Howard Gardner has been, since its dissemination in the 1980s, one of the proposals for research and intervention in psychology that has generated most interest on the street.

At first the types of intelligence proposed by Gardner were 7, but twelve years after the publication of the work that would make them known, the author presented another element for this list. It was naturalistic intelligence, also known as the eighth type of intelligence..

What is naturalistic intelligence?

Naturalistic intelligence is the ability to categorize elements of the environment by recognizing their differences and the way in which they relate to each other.and to use this information to interact with them in a beneficial way.

The paradigm of this type of intelligence are naturalists and explorers such as Charles Darwin or Alexander von Humboldt, who were able to enter natural environments, identify the different animal and plant species, learn the defining characteristics of each one and use this information for their own benefit.

Confusions surrounding naturalistic intelligence

Naturalistic intelligence is subject to confusion precisely because of the reference to the natural world in its conceptualization.

While in the definitions of the rest of the intelligences proposed by Howard Gardner much emphasis is placed on its condition of capacity for mental processes, the idea of naturalistic intelligence seems to give much importance to the type of information with which it works, and not only to what is done with that information.. The formal aspect of this intelligence is explained as a process, but we also talk about the specific contents it deals with: those elements of nature that we have to identify and use to our advantage, the anatomical particularities of each of the plants and animals that we examine, etc.

In other words, while we know that logical-mathematical intelligence will be activated whenever we pose a logical and mathematical challenge and that spatial intelligence will play a role whenever we conceive something that can be imagined in a two-dimensional or 3D plane, it seems that naturalistic intelligence will only work with a very specific type of content: those that would be linked to the natural environment or to all forms of life that come from it.

Immersion in the natural vs. artificial debate

Curiously, understanding that naturalistic intelligence applies only to this type of content does not make its conceptualization clearer and more delimited; in fact, just the opposite is true.

In fact, sustaining this notion of what naturalistic intelligence is forces us to relate the debate about whether the theory of multiple intelligences is more or less scientifically valid to another discussion that has practically nothing to do with it: the philosophical dispute about what is natural and what is not natural, and in what sense these two worlds are ontologically different from each other. For example, are different kinds of vegetables natural, being that they have been profoundly altered over centuries and millennia of artificial selection? Or even... Are what we know today as animal species something natural, when many of these categories have been established from the genetic (and therefore "artificial") analysis of their members and not so much from a direct observation of their anatomy?

This immersion in metaphysical waters makes it not too complicated to relate naturalistic intelligence with the personal enjoyment of environments little altered by humans or with mystical ideas such as the ability to empathize with life on the planet, the sensitivity to feel at one with nature, and so on.

The role of the natural in the eighth intelligence

However, contrary to what is often believed, naturalistic intelligence does not refer only to the natural, naturalist intelligence does not only refer to flora, fauna and what we find in virgin environments, but also to the natural environment.. Part of this confusion could come from the fact that at the beginning Gardner explained very vaguely what this new type of intelligence consisted of, dedicating only a few lines to it, and in them he did not speak so much of naturalistic intelligence as of "the intelligence of naturalists".

Mentions of the natural environment served to create a powerful image that would serve to exemplify in a few lines what this new concept consisted of. Thus, although Gardner talked about the ability to get to know the natural environment well, he also made it clear that, as he saw it, it was not the same as the ability to know the natural environment. that, as he understood it, it was also involved in the recognition and classification of all kinds of objects and artifacts: cars, sneakers, etc., and the ability to recognize and classify them.cars, slippers...

That is why naturalistic intelligence would be defined, rather than being a reflection of our ability to learn from natural environments, as a reflection of our ability to learn about all kinds of environments and to interact appropriately with the elements that are available in them.

Validity of naturalistic intelligence and critiques

By pushing the concept of the natural into the background, naturalistic intelligence is left out of the complications and turbulence of the nature-artificiality ontological dilemmas, but there is another problem from which it does not escape: it seems to overlap with all other types of intelligence.. Or, at least, with linguistic intelligence (to conceptualize the identified elements), logical-mathematical intelligence (to understand hierarchies and categorizations) and spatial intelligence (to apply this knowledge in a concrete environment and in real time).

The problem of the overlap between the types of intelligences proposed by Gardner is not new, and certainly does not concern only naturalistic intelligence. and certainly does not concern only naturalistic intelligence, but also the core idea of the theory of multiple intelligences, according to which these are mental capacities that are more isolated from each other than united to form a whole. So far, due to the lack of empirical evidence in favor of multiple intelligences and the good health of the notion of a unified intelligence, the addition of this eighth intelligence does not serve, for the time being, to reinforce Howard Gardner's ideas.

Bibliographical references:

• Gardner, Howard (1998). "A Reply to Perry D. Klein's 'Multiplying the problems of intelligence by eight'". Canadian Journal of Education 23 (1):

• Triglia, Adrian; Regader, Bertrand; and Garcia-Allen, Jonathan (2018). "What is intelligence? From IQ to multiple intelligences". EMSE Publishing.