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Expressed at this level of generality, Gardner's theory is one with which few people could disagree. But the purpose of Frames of Mind was to identify seven specific "intelligences," and that list forms the basis of all the educational applications of MI. Gardner argued against the view of intelligence as a single faculty that is accurately measured by an IQ test. Rather, he said, we have several separate intellectual capacities, each of which deserves to be called an intelligence. The seven intelligences are linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal (the ability to understand others) and intrapersonal (the ability to understand oneself). More recently, Gardner has added a "naturalist" intelligence.
Gardner based his list on findings from neurology, developmental and cognitive psychology, and anthropology. He argued that these intelligences can be shown to be localized in the brain; that they are exhibited in extreme form by idiots savants, prodigies and geniuses; that they have a clear developmental history; and that they are used in the performance of roles that cultures value around the world. In the book's final section, Gardner explored the educational implications of the theory, suggesting ways the intelligences can be exploited and fostered.
Those who hold that intelligence is a single, general ability and those who say it consists of many factors have engaged in a long-standing, bitter debate (although even those who believe in general intelligence say there are many subordinate cognitive abilities). Reviewers praised Frames of Mind for eloquently making new arguments on behalf of the multifaceted position, but they complained that Gardner's theory is too speculative. "The discussion is all hunch and opinion," wrote George Miller, one of the founders of cognitive psychology. The eminent developmental psychologist Jerome Bruner, a onetime colleague of Gardner's, said the book was "in many ways brilliant" but that Gardner succeeded "only moderately well" in proving the existence and independence of the seven intelligences. In particular, Bruner said, the arguments for the kinesthetic and personal intelligences "stumble badly."
Some of the strongest doubts about Gardner's evidence were expressed in Frames of Mind by Gardner himself. "The most I can hope to accomplish here is to provide a feeling for each specific intelligence," he wrote. "I am painfully aware that a convincing case for each candidate intelligence remains the task of other days and other volumes." And at the very end of the book, he warned that his work "needs to be amply discussed and tested" in the fields of biology and cognitive science before it is put into practice. "We are not yet certain," he said, "of the goodness of the idea of multiple intelligences."