The nature of "intelligence" and the principles of cognition / by C. Spearman.

  • Spearman, C. (Charles), 1863-1945.
Date:
1922
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The nature of "intelligence" and the principles of cognition / by C. Spearman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    24/376 (page 12)
    adopt like Binet the plan of pooling borrowed from the rival theory (p. io). Secondly, this view, just as much as those mentioned already, involves the fallacy of formal powers. Further, such a view, shifting the burden of a psychological problem on to teleological ground, is only an explanation of obscuruni per obscurius. The final objection goes deeper still. It is that the defining of intelligence as adaptability to new situations does not even try to deal with the nature of this power, but only with its employment. Such an attitude is like the answer of the child who, on being asked what is meant by a “ chair,” replies that it is to sit on. If even in children this sort of definition is well known to be a sign of mental inferiority, in the science of adults it must betoken at least a strange crudeness. Surely by this time we ought to have learnt the lesson of Socrates: “ To the question about clay (as to what it is), it is a plain and simple answer to give, that clay is earth mixed with moisture, without mentioning what use is made of it.” 1 Miscellaneous Views. Although the preceding views of “ intelligence ” have obtained the most conspicuous advo- cacy, others also are advanced and, indeed, in endless variety. A fair notion of then* general character can be gathered from the important recent symposium on the matter, to which no less than fourteen prominent auth- orities on mental testing contributed each a paper.2 Of these only three, Colvin, Pintner, and Peterson, seem to have been satisfied with the above-mentioned teleological standpoint. Somewhere near to it came Thorndike and Buckingham, since they define intelligence respectively as “ the power of good responses from the point of view of truth ” and as “ the ability to act effectively under given conditions.” Akin is its definition by Woodrow as a “ capacity to acquire capacity,” the latter or acquired 1 Plato, Theaetetus, 147 c. 2 Journ. Educ. Psych, vii. 1921.