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Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed. Educating for
the Virtues in the Twenty­First Century
Silvia Molina1

1) Department of Pedagogy, University Rovira i Virgili, Spain.
Date of publication: February, 24th 2012.

To cite this review: Molina, S. (2012). [Review of the book Truth, Beauty,
and Goodness Reframed. Educating for the Virtues in the Twenty­First
Century, by Howard Gardner], International Journal of Educational
Psychology (IJEP), 1(1), 70­72. DOI: 10.4471/ijep.2012.05
To link this review: http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/ijep.2012.05

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IJEP – International Journal of Educational Psychology Vol. 1 No. 1
February 2012 pp.70­72.

Review
Howard Gardner. (2011). Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed.
Educating for the Virtues in the Twenty­First Century. New York: Basic
Books.
Three classical virtues that have guided human thoughts and behavior
through history, truth, beauty and goodness, are the focus of Howard
Gardner’s book. Gardner discusses the role and importance of these
virtues in current society, which has seen important transformations
since these virtues, “the trio”, were first conceptualized. The
postmodernism and the advent of the digital media are two central
events that have shaped societies in the last decades. In this new
context, the classical virtues need to be “reframed”, and reframing the
classical virtues in society entails rethinking how to educate on these
three virtues.

Postmodern theories questioned the possibility to ascertain truth as
well as its value for human existence, arguing that it is only an
expression of power. These views also treated beauty as irrelevant and
have been skeptical about goodness. The media technologies, in turn,
challenge the ideas of truth, goodness and beauty, as they offer great
amounts of information, with different levels of rigor and sometimes
contradictory, offer different and new ways of relating to others, and
allow mew forms of creating, acceding, and storing works of art.

Despite this challenging picture, Gardner believes that the core
characteristics of truth, beauty and goodness can be preserved and
defends the usefulness and the deep meaning that the three virtues have
for people today. He reviews the current status of the classical virtues
from a multidisciplinary perspective, contributing with reflections from
history, biology, psychology, sociology or anthropology. From this

2012 Hipatia Press
ISSN 2014­3591
DOI:10.4471/ijep.2012.05



71International Journal of Educational Psychology (IJEP), 1(1)

review, he concludes that the search of truth is today possible if we base
for people today. He reviews the current status of the classical virtues
from a multidisciplinary perspective, contributing with reflections from
history, biology, psychology, sociology or anthropology. From this
review, he concludes that the search of truth is today possible if we base
on scholarly disciplines and professional crafts, which have provided
empirical contrastable knowledge through history. As regards goodness,
he emphasises the need to differentiate between the “neighborly
morality”, which characterises good relations with others, and “the
ethics of roles”, which refers to being a “good worker” or a “good
citizen” in changing societies with increasing new situations to deal
with, new problems to solve and new forms of relation. Finally, he
contends that beauty should be formulated as the personal experience
caused of an object which is interesting, its form is memorable and
invites further encounters.

The author acknowledges that the three virtues are qualitative different
and that they have different histories, being the history of truth
“convergent and confirmatory”, the history of beauty “divergent”,
unpredictable and more dependable on personal experiences, and the
history of goodness having one consolidated part –the neighborly
morality– and another more recent –the ethics of roles–. Furthermore,
they are also different in terms of their relevance for life, being beauty
the less determinant for survival. Nonetheless, Gardner clearly supports
the importance of the three virtues, as he understands the experience of
beauty as one main reason for living once survival is granted. In this
regard, he considers: “The trio of virtues, while unquestionably in flux
and under attack, remain essential to the human experience and, indeed,
to human survival. They must not and will not be abandoned” (p.13). It
is noteworthy the capacity Gardner attributes to persons in the
development of “the trio”. Gardner gives to individuals, working alone
or together, the power to achieve desirable goals, starting from the
premise that: “what is distinctly human is our capacity to change, or to
transcend, whatever traits and inclinations we may have as initial
endowment, courtesy of evolution” (p.15).

For this reason, he offers an educational approach to ensure the pass
of these values to new generations, and also to improve the way in
which adults can reconceptualise the virtues in this new context.



Silvia Molina ­ Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed72

Silvia Molina Roldán
University Rovira i Virgili

silvia.molina@urv.cat

tion synergies are noted as powerful to achieve these objectives: while
the accumulated experience of old people can help young persons being
introduced in values with a long tradition, they can introduce their
elders in new realities such as the media, which provide new
experiences and contexts to reframe them.

What makes Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed an essential book
for teachers, educators and families, is being a relevant and meaningful
work for today based on values that have always been on the agenda.




