On Existential Intelligence: The Ontology of Ambiguity and Education

(Hardback)

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This book proposes an ontological approach to understanding existential intelligence and its connections to democracy and education. Sevket Benhr Oral examines the concept of existential intelligencehereafter ExistIon an ontological level. ExistI is not conceived as a psychological aptitude one can be good at or not like spatial or bodily-kinesthetic intelligence. Rather, it refers to a unitary experience that is nevertheless riddled with ambiguity. All human beings are potentially open to such experience since we all have the capacity to experience the extraordinary, or better put, the extraordinariness of the ordinary. Although Howard Gardner later identified existential intelligence among other intelligences, his theory of multiple intelligences, while still widely accepted by educators, did not adequately explore this concept, especially in its political, moral, and philosophical dimensions. It is essential that we do since ExistI is ultimately about our capacity for more peaceful ways of co-existing with others, the extraordinariness of living collectively with human and nonhuman beings.

Author Bio

Sevket Benhr Oral is Senior Researcher at the Vytautas Kavolis Research Institute, Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania.