‘Seeing with the hands’: Blindness, touch and the Enlightenment spatial imaginary

Abstract

The centrality of the so-called Molyneux problem and its concern with blindness, touch and sight is examined here in relation to some current work in psychology and neuropsychology. From debates and correspondence in the 18th century onwards, sparked by this hypothetical question, first-person accounts from blind people were sought to bolster these philosophical speculations. The question asked by Molyneux is crucial in Enlightenment philosophy, and is discussed in a series of dialogues between philosophers such as Locke, Berkeley, Descartes and Diderot. This article shows how such a historical and philosophical moment was an attempt to draw together a psychological philosophy of sensory experience, and how its legacy concerning a spatial imaginary remains to this day.