THOUGHTS ON NATURALISM

Meaning of Naturalism:

Naturalism is a philosophical doctrine. It is opposed to idealism in its interpretation of reality.

Naturalism is concerned with “natural self” or “real self”. It contends that the ultimate reality is matter, and not mind or spirit.

Naturalism does not believe in spiritualism. It denies the existence of a spiritual universe — the universe of ideas and values.

According to naturalism, the material world is the only real world. It is the only reality. This material world is being governed by a system of natural laws and the man, who is the creation of the material world, must submit to them. The naturalists have regard for actual facts, actual situations and realities. For them nature is everything. It is the whole reality.

Behind everything there is Nature. It denies the existence of anything beyond nature. Naturalism believes that everything comes from nature and returns to nature. Nature, according to naturalism, is a self-sufficient entity. It is self-determined and governed by its own laws.

The naturalists see things as they are. They apprehend reality as it is in its own nature. They do not believe that there are any spiritual values or absolute truths. Naturalism takes recourse to such concepts as appetites, emotions, instincts and evolution. According to naturalists, instincts are responsible for all our activities — biological, psychological or social. To them there is no absolute good or evil in the world. Values of life, according to naturalism, are created by the human needs. Man creates them when he reacts to — or interacts with — his environment. He must adapt himself to the environment.

According to the naturalists there is inherent goodness in man. In man there is an innate capacity for morality. Man is born rational. The naturalists, thus, have idolized man. Nature, according to the naturalists, is complete in itself, having its own laws. It does not, therefore, require us to have insight or intuition to understand Nature.

Naturalism believes that mind is an accident in the process of evolution and it can be explained in terms of nature. Mind is a function of the brain which is material in nature. Mind is not the source of knowledge; all knowledge is acquired from without, and senses are the gateways of all knowledge.

The personality of the child, according to the naturalists, is fashioned by:

(a) Endowment and

(b) Environment.

MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCE

     The theory of multiple intelligences differentiates intelligence into specific (primarily sensory) 'modalities', rather than seeing intelligence as dominated by a single general ability. Howard Gardner proposed this model in his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. According to Gardner, an intelligence must fulfill eight criteria:^[1] potential for brain isolation by brain damage, place in evolutionary history, presence of core operations, susceptibility to encoding (symbolic expression), a distinct developmental progression, the existence of savants, prodigies and other exceptional people, and support from experimental psychology and psychometric findings.

     Gardner chose eight abilities that he held to meet these criteria: musical-rhythmic, visual-spatial, verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic. He later suggested that existential and moral intelligence may also be worthy of inclusion.^[3] Although the distinction between intelligences has been set out in great detail, Gardner opposes the idea of labeling learners to a specific intelligence. Gardner maintains that his theory of multiple intelligences should "empower learners", not restrict them to one modality of learning.^[4] According to Gardner, an intelligence is "a biopsychological potential to process information that can be activated in a cultural setting to solve problems or create products that are of value in a culture."

      Many of Gardner's "intelligences" correlate with the g factor, supporting the idea of a single, dominant type of intelligence. According to a 2006 study, each of the domains proposed by Gardner involved a blend of g, cognitive abilities other than g, and, in some cases, non-cognitive abilities or personality characteristics.