Truth, beauty, goodness
In his own words, Howard Gardner is a pessimist who tries to live like an optimist. But the ever-prolific Gardner remains upbeat in his latest book, “Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed,” a contemporary look at how our conceptions of these three virtues have shifted over time. Yet, Gardner insists, these virtues remain the crucial bedrock of our existence — even in light of postmodern skepticism and the side effects of technological advances on our attention spans and ways of thinking. In an era of constant flux, where Wikipedia has become a go-to source for information, Gardner, the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, says the odds of ascertaining the actual truth about something are actually better than ever. “In a totalitarian society, they only give you one version of the story. When I was growing up, there were only three television...