Molyneux's Problem: Three Centuries of Discussion on the Perception of Forms (International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idees)

152 Pages·1996·8.14 MB·English

by  M. Degenaar

MOLYNEUX'S PROBLEM
ARCHIVES INTERNATIONALES D'HISTOIRE DES IDI~ES
INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS
147
MARJOLEIN DEGENAAR
MOLYNEUX'S PROBLEM
EERHT SEIRUTNEC FO NOISSUCSID
NO EHT NOITPECREP FO SMROF
Founding Directors:
P. Dibont (Pads) and R.H. Popkin (Washington University, .tS Louis & UCLA)
Directors: Brian Copenhaver (University of California, Los Angeles, USA), Sarah Hutton
(The University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom), Richard Popkin (Washington Univer-
sity, St Louis & University of California, Los Angeles, USA)
Editorial Board: J.F. Battail (Pads); F. Duchesneau (Montreal); A. Gabbey (New York); T.
Gregory (Rome); J.D. North (Groningen); M.J. Petry (Rotterdam); J. Popkin (Lexington);
Th. Verbeek (Utrecht)
Advisory Editorial Board: .J Aubin (Pads); A. Crombie (Oxford); H. Gadamer (Heidelberg);
H. Gouhier (Pads); K. Hanada (Hokkaido University); .W Kirsop (Melbourne); P.O.
Kristeller (Columbia University); E. Labrousse (Paris); A. Lossky (Los Angeles); J.
Malarczyk (Lublin); E. de Olaso (C.I.F. Buenos Aires); J. Orcibal (Pads); W. R6d
(Miinchen); G. Rousseau (Los Angeles); H. Rowen (Rutgers University, N.J.); J.P.
Schobinger (Z0rich); J. Tans (Groningen)
MOLYNEUX'S PROBLEM
Three Centuries of Discussion
on the Perception of Forms
MARJOLEIN DEGENAAR
Erasmus University Rotterdam
Translated from the Dutch by
Michael J. Collins
L~
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS
DORDRECHT / BOSTON / LONDON
A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN 0-7923-3934-7
Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers,
P.O. Box ,71 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
Kluwer Academic Publishers incorporates
the publishing programmes of
D. Reidel, Martinus Nijhoff, Dr W. Junk and MTP Press.
Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada
by Kluwer Academic Publishers,
101 Philip Drive, Norwell, MA 02061, U.S.A.
In all other countries, sold and distributed
by Kluwer Academic Publishers Group,
P.O. Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
Permission is granted to reproduce
Molyneux's letter to the authors of the Biblioth~que universelle et historique,
7 July 1688. Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms. I.x)cke c. ,61 fol. 92 recto.
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved
© 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
Printed in the Netherlands
To My Husband Gert-Jan
and
My Two Sons Sebastiaan and Diederik
Molyneux's letter to the authors of the Bibliothdque universelle et historique,
7 July 1688. Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms. Locke c. 16, fol. 92 recto.
CONTENTS
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2 Molyneux's Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1 The First Formulation of Molyneux's Problem . . . . . . . 17
2 Background to Molyneux's Problem . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3 The Publication of Molyneux's Problem . . . . . . . . . 21
4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3 Philosophical Discussions in the Eighteenth Century 25
1 Molyneux's Problem as a Hypothetical Problem . . . . . . 25
2 Negative Answers to Molyneux's Question . . . . . . . . 26
3 Positive Answers to Molyneux's Question . . . . . . . . . 39
4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5o
4 The First Experimental Data . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
1 Cheselden's Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
2 Cataract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3 Cataract Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4 Cheselden's Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6o
5 The Methodology of Psychological Experiments . . . . . . . 65
6 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5 Empirical Approaches in the Nineteenth Century . . . . 87
1 Congenitally Blind People Cured by Surgery . . . . . . . . 87
2 Newborn Animals and Babies . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
3 Stereoscopic Perception of Depth . . . . . . . . . . . . lo4
4 The Empiricism-Nativism Debate . . . . . . . . . . . lo6
5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
lO Contents
6 Modern Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
1 Historical Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
2 Surgically Treated Cataract Patients . . . . . . . . . . 114
3 Visual Deprivation in Animals . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
4 Sensory Substitution Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12o
5 Electrical Stimulation of the Visual Cortex . . . . . . . . 124
6 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
7 Molyneux's Problem in Retrospect . . . . . . . . . . 127
1 Interpretations of Molyneux's Problem . . . . . . . . . . 127
2 Ways of Dealing with Molyneux's Problem . . . . . . . . 13o
3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Index of Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Index of Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
PREFACE
A LTHOUGH there are already a considerable number of publications about
Molyneux's problem concerning the visual capabilities of congenitally
blind people who have just been made to see, the historical development of
the discussion of the problem has never been studied in detail. This book
aims to fill this lacuna. It contains a comprehensive survey of the discussion
of Molyneux's problem from 1688 up to the present time.
Molyneux's question has been addressed by both philosophers and exper-
imental psychologists. This study should therefore be of interest not only to
historians of philosophy, but also to those interested in the history of experi-
mental psychology, especially the history of vision research.
This book is based on the author's doctoral dissertation of 1992. She wishes
to thank M. J. Petry and R. A. Crone for their stimulating criticism. She also
wishes to thank her husband, Gert-Jan Lokhorst, for typesetting the book
with XET , and her two sons, Sebastiaan and Diederik, for providing her with
welcome diversions from her academic work.
11
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
I MAGINE that a congenitally blind person has learnt to distinguish and
name a sphere and a cube by touch alone. Then imagine that this person
suddenly recovers the faculty of sight. Will he be able to distinguish both
objects by sight and to say which is the sphere and which the cube?
This problem, formulated in 1688 by the Irish philosopher William Moly-
neux, has intrigued a wide variety of intellectuals for three centuries. Those
who have attempted to solve it include not only such philosophers as Locke,
Berkeley, Reid, Leibniz, Voltaire, La Mettrie, Condillac and Diderot, but
also such psychologists as Johannes Miiller, Hermann Helmholtz and William
James.
Molyneux's brainchild, which has gone down in history as "the Molyneux
problem," was not something trivial, but rather a question closely linked with
a number of major philosophical and psychological problems. It played an im-
portant part, for instance, in the development and justification of theories of
perception and knowledge. It led to discussions on what can be directly per-
ceived by the various senses, on the possible mutual interaction of the senses,
on the influence of reason on perception, on the relationship between visual
and tactile sensations of forms, on the relationship between visual and tactile
concepts of forms and on the application of familiar concepts in new situa-
tions. 1 It constituted a central controversial question for eighteenth-century
empiricists and rationalists, it figured in the nineteenth-century empiricism-
nativism debate and it has also engaged the attention of researchers from a
variety of disciplines in this century.
In a somewhat wider perspective, Molyneux's problem increased interest
in the notion that our world undergoes far-reaching changes when we lack one
or more of our senses, a suggestion found widely in the scientific and popular
literature of the Enlightenment. 2 People lacking one or other of the senses
were regarded as interesting from the point of view of theories of knowledge
1 By visual and tactile forms I mean forms as perceived by the sense of sight or the sense
of touch respectively. By visual and tactile concepts I mean concepts of forms obtained one
way or another vi& sight or touch respectively.
2See, for example, Dufau 1837, Von Erhardt-Siebold 1932, MacLean 1936, Nicolson 1946 ,
and Paulson 1987. See also Lende [x94o ] 1953.
13