Epistemological Intelligence
 As the psychology of intelligence has evolved during the past century psychologists have gradually come to recognize new and more specialized varieties of intelligence. In 1920, for example, E. L. Thorndike proposed a distinctive variety of “social intelligence,” referring to the ability to understand other people. In 1967, J. P. Guilford proposed what he called a “multidimensional conception of intelligence,” in which he classified some 120 distinguishable abilities. In the 1980s and 1990s, Peter Salovey, John D. Mayer, Howard Gardner, and Daniel Goleman proposed the recognition of “emotional intelligence.” In publications in 2002 and 2005, Steven James Bartlett introduced and developed the concept of “moral intelligence,” defined in terms of basic abilities that enable people to counteract and avoid psychologically normal human predispositions to violence, aggression, and destructiveness.
As we have become better able to identify and classify specialized varieties of intelligence, one variety has so far escaped attention. It is a variety of intelligence that is of particular interest and importance to a specific population of people, for it primarily concerns philosophers, and of these, it especially concerns philosophers who specialize in epistemology, the study of the limits and conditions of knowledge.
Like other varieties of intelligence that have been identified, “epistemological intelligence” is the outcome of a certain set of skills. The skills that define epistemological intelligence are at once mentally demanding, while they presuppose certain kinds of intellectual discipline and determination.
Epistemological Intelligence is an open access monograph by Steven James Bartlett, published January, 2017. The monograph has two objectives: (1) to recognize epistemological intelligence as a new variety of human intelligence, one that is especially important to philosophers, and (2) to understand the challenges posed by the general psychological profile of philosophers and of students of philosophy that can both impede the development and cultivation of the skills associated with epistemological intelligence, as well as limit the progress of the discipline of philosophy.
To download a free PDF copy (467 KB), click here. Also available from HAL (Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) and PhilPapers.
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