Molyneux Problem Research Articles

Old and new versions of the Molyneux question: A review of experimental answers

The ‘Molyneux problem’ is typically framed in terms of the crossmodal matching of shape information from touch to vision. Indeed, shape along with intensity have commonly been considered amodal stimulus properties/dimensions (at least by developmental researchers). However, it is important to note that what is common, if anything, to the senses differs in the two cases: It is the physical stimulus (and possibly also the associated phenomenology) that is thought to be the same in the case of crossmodal (or intermodal) shape matching between touch and vision, whereas it is the nature of the underlying neural encoding that is said to be similar in the case of crossmodal matching of auditory and visual stimulus intensity. While the first empirical data to have been published on these two forms of putatively amodal crossmodal matching appeared to suggest that they both emerge surprisingly early in the course of human development (i.e., within the first month of life), certain of these seminal findings have proved difficult to replicate. Ultimately, therefore, there is currently little convincing evidence to support the notion that such putatively innate crossmodal matching of amodal stimulus dimensions is actually different in kind from the various other crossmodal correspondences that are seemingly acquired at various points during the course of human development (typically as a result of the internalization of the crossmodal statistics of the environment). As such, there may be nothing particularly special about the type of crossmodal matching thought to underlie the ‘Molyneux problem’, and continued interest in the issue may inadvertently have helped to sustain a misguided account of the differences between different types of crossmodal correspondence.

First-sight recognition of touched objects shows that chicks can solve Molyneux's problem.

If a congenitally blind person learns to distinguish between a cube and a sphere by touch, would they immediately recognize these objects by sight once their vision is restored? This question, posed by Molyneux in 1688, has puzzled philosophers and scientists since then. To overcome ethical and practical difficulties in the investigation of cross-modal recognition, we studied inexperienced poultry chicks, which can be reared in darkness until the moment of a visual test with no detrimental consequences. After hatching chicks in darkness, we exposed them to either tactile smooth or tactile bumpy stimuli for 24 h. Immediately after the tactile exposure, chicks were tested in a visual recognition task, during their first experience with light. At first sight, chicks that had been exposed in the tactile modality to smooth stimuli approached the visual smooth stimulus significantly more than those exposed to the tactile bumpy stimuli. These results show that visually inexperienced chicks can solve Molyneux's problem, indicating cross-modal recognition does not require previous multimodal experience. At least in this precocial species, supra-modal brain areas appear functional already at birth. This discovery paves the way for the investigation of predisposed cross-modal cognition that does not depend on visual experience.

Artificial Intelligence, Phenomenology, and The Molyneux Problem

Artificial Intelligence, Phenomenology, and The Molyneux Problem

The Senses and the History of Philosophy ed. by Brian Glenney and José Filipe Silva

Reviewed by: The Senses and the History of Philosophy ed. by Brian Glenney and José Filipe Silva Gary Hatfield Brian Glenney and José Filipe Silva, editors. The Senses and the History of Philosophy. Rewriting the History of Philosophy. Series editors, Aaron Garrett and Pauliina Remes. London: Routledge, 2019. Pp. xi + 364. Cloth, $176.00. This edited volume of newly commissioned papers aims to further understanding of the philosophy of perception and its history. It seeks a broad historical coverage, to include works outside the Western tradition and figures only newly prominent within the Western tradition (e.g. Margaret Cavendish). Its principal theme is the problem of perceptual error, which it asserts has been understudied, at least in antiquity and the middle ages, as has, allegedly, the history of theories of perception more generally. The individual chapters are typically of high quality and add to the extant literature. The focus, as is usual, is on visual perception, but blindness and touch come forward in three chapters on Molyneux's problem (two historical, one contemporary), and there is a chapter on olfaction. The book partially delivers on its aim of cultural diversity. The first part addresses "non-Western perspectives." These turn out to be Chinese and Buddhist (in the Indian tradition), and it would have been more informative to use those names rather than defining the part by what it is not. The collection might have extended its treatment of non-Western traditions and theories had it chosen to include a chapter on Islamic theorists, including Ibn-Sina and Ibn al-Haytham, who are now given brief treatment in the chapter on medieval theories of perceptual error, which treats them in the narrative of optics (perspectiva) in the Latin West. More generally, the optical tradition, also including Ptolemy (second century, Alexandria, Egypt), and subsequently Roger Bacon, John Pecham, and Witelo, and extending to Kepler, might usefully have received greater attention, as this tradition provided a framework for thinking about both veridical and nonveridical perception into the early modern period. In this way, the chapter on mirror images in medieval theories might have been augmented or complemented. In the section on early modern theories, the "African" (5) philosopher Anton Amo is introduced and his interesting claim examined that only the body, not the mind, is involved in perception. Amo was taken from his home in what is now Ghana as a toddler and raised in the principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. He was thus culturally and intellectually German. Not a single work on African philosophical thought is mentioned in interpreting Amo's work, which retains its interest in discussion of early modern European philosophy. The chapter is found in a part that covers Locke, Berkeley, Reid, and Cavendish, leaving Descartes (who wrote a Dioptrics) to be covered incidentally, through his influence (in this case, primarily on Amo and Cavendish). Plato and Aristotle are also present only through their influence. The editors' claim (2) that previous work in this area has focused almost exclusively on veridical perception rather than error is not plausible. Illusion has long been a prominent topic in the history of theories of perception, not only in the early modern period and [End Page 696] after (e.g. with the argument from illusion), but also in ancient and medieval philosophy, as attention to the work of David Hamlyn (Sensation and Perception: A History of the Philosophy of Perception [London: Routledge, 1961]), and various articles by Myles Burnyeat and Richard Sorabji, would show. None of these authors are mentioned in the book's essays or introductions—which of course does not take away from the fact that several of the chapters offer new reflections on perceptual error. While there is indeed much more work to be done on the history of the philosophy of perception, as the editors say (2), the book provides little guidance to the extant literature. Various topical articles and books are referenced in the chapters of the six parts of the volume (on Chinese and Buddhist theories; ancient Greek; medieval; early modern; post-Kantian; and contemporary), but the editors missed an opportunity to notice prominent works that are not otherwise mentioned or are buried in footnotes. This would...

Leibniz and the Molyneux Problem

The Molyneux problem is one of the major questions addressed by early modern authors. Whereas Locke’s response to Molyneux’s question has been the subject of extensive scholarly discussion, Leibniz’s response has received comparatively little attention. This paper defends an interpretation of Leibniz’s nuanced response to the problem and criticizes a competing interpretation that has recently been proposed.

Locke on the role of judgment in perception

AbstractHow much is given in perceptual experience, and how much must be constructed? John Locke's answer to this question contains two prima facie incompatible strands. On the one hand, he claims that ideas of primary qualities come to us passively, through multiple senses: the idea of a sphere can be received either by sight or touch. On the other hand, Locke seemingly thinks that a faculty he calls “judgment” is needed to create visual ideas of three‐dimensional shapes. How can these accounts be made consistent? The problem comes to a head in the discussion of Molyneux's problem: can a person born blind and then made to see identify a sphere and a cube, when he had only touched them in the past? Locke's answer is no, but, as George Berkeley points out, it is hard to see why: if the ideas of shapes come to us through sight as well as touch, nothing should stop Molyneux man from instantly recognizing sphere and cube. Pace much of the existing literature, I argue that although Locke does think we receive visual ideas of primary qualities, the faculty of judgment is required to “inflate” those ideas into three dimensions and to correct for other perspectival distortions. I then show how this answer is consistent with the rest of his theory of perception.

Molyneux's Problem in the Scottish Enlightenment

This article examines the “progress” of Scottish metaphysics during the long eighteenth century. The scientific cultivation of natural knowledge drawn from the examples of Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626), John Locke (1632–1704), and Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727) was a defining pursuit in the Scottish Enlightenment. The Aberdonian philosopher George Dalgarno (1616–1687); Thomas Reid (1710–1796), a member of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society known as the Wise Club; and the professor of moral philosophy at Edinburgh University Dugald Stewart (1753–1828), contributed to that Scottish pattern of philosophical thinking. The question of the extent to which particular external senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell) might be improved when others were damaged or absent from birth attracted their particular interest. This article shows the different ways in which Scottish anatomists of the mind resolved Molyneux’s Problem of whether or not an agent could accurately perceive an object from a newly restored external sense.

From Irish Philosophy to Irish Theatre: The Blind (Wo)Man Made to See

This article traces the motif of the blind man made to see, also known as the Molyneux problem, from the writings of Irish philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries to 20th-century Irish plays. The narrative of restoring sight to the blind is taken as a paradigmatic example of overcoming a disability, with a cure that normalises the blind persons and allows them to reintegrate into society. The paper argues that this narrative was problematised by Irish philosophers and playwrights from Molyneux and Berkeley to Yeats, Synge, Beckett and Friel.

Locke, Judgment, and Figure: A Consistent Answer to the Molyneux Problem

John Locke has been famously credited with resurrecting the distinction between common and proper sensibles, better known in the Essay as primary and secondary qualities. Although some argue that Locke’s adherence to the doctrine of the common sensibles is in conflict with his empiricist sensibilities, I will show this is not likely to be the case. In order to achieve this I will argue that Locke held there to be cross-modal connections in the mind for the representational content of ideas of primary quality, through the relation of resemblance, but that these representations need to be empirically verified to be veridical. Consequently, I believe this interpretation points in a useful direction for making an epistemic distinction between objects encountered between the phenomenal and sub-phenomenal domains.

"The Molyneux Problem" in Galdós's Marianela

"The Molyneux Problem" in Galdós's Marianela

Thomas Reid’s Theory of Perception (review)

Reviewed by: Thomas Reid’s Theory of Perception Patrick Rysiew Ryan Nichols. Thomas Reid’s Theory of Perception. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007. Pp. xvi + 301. Cloth, $74.00. Thanks in no small part to the recognition afforded it by such established figures as William Alston, Keith Lehrer, Alvin Plantinga, and others, Thomas Reid’s (1710–96) philosophy is, at long last, getting the serious attention that it deserves. Ryan Nichols is among the generation of younger scholars who are making Reid’s work a focus of their research, and he has written an excellent book examining Reid’s views on perception. Previous treatments have been either in articles or part of a larger discussion of Reid’s philosophy as a whole or, more often perhaps, of his epistemological views. The focus on Reid’s epistemology is understandable since what inspired him was the unacceptably skeptical implications of the inherited “theory of ideas”—i.e., the view that the immediate object of thought is always some mind-dependent object, as opposed to worldly objects and [End Page 647] properties. But if one is to reject the picture of perception that is part-and-parcel of “the ideal theory,” one needs something to put in its place. And perception is both the topic of Reid’s Inquiry into the Human Mind (1764) and thoroughly discussed in his Essays on the Intellectual Powers (1785). So Reid’s theory of perception merits serious attention, and in this book it receives just that; with consideration given to: Reid’s method; the role of sensation in perception and the sense in which they are/are not perceptual-cognitive objects; Reid’s difficult discussion of “visible figure”; our conceptions of primary and secondary qualities, as well as Reid’s novel take on that distinction; Reid’s response(s) to the Molyneux problem; his provocative and, at times, conflicting claims about “acquired perception”; and whether or in what sense(s) Reid takes perception, in its different forms, to be “direct.” In discussing these matters, Nichols faces the challenge of connecting Reid’s views with current debates and concepts without being Procrustean or objectionably anachronistic. On both counts he does a fine job. Many of the more involved matters are reserved for footnotes, and faced with a choice between maintaining traction on what Reid actually says and gaining a friction-free “Reidian answer” to certain current philosophical debates (210), Nichols consistently opts for the former. Through it all, Nichols exhibits an excellent grasp of the relevant texts, including those which are less well known (e.g., the Philosophical Orations) and several unpublished sources. One place where I think Nichols goes astray, however, is over the interpretation of passages like the following, in which Reid emphasizes the “unaccountability” of various aspects of the mind and its operations: “For anything we can discover, we might have been so framed as to have all the sensations we now have by our senses, without any impression upon our organs, and without any conception of any external object. For anything we know, we might have been so made as to perceive external objects, without any impressions on bodily organs, and without any of those sensations which invariably accompany perception in our present frame”; and, “We know that such is our constitution, that in certain circumstances we have certain conceptions; but how they are produced we know no more than how we ourselves are produced” (218). As Nichols sees it, the “philosophical pessimism” expressed in such passages makes it clear “why Reid does not claim in print to possess perceptual knowledge of external objects, as opposed to ‘informations of the sense’”; indeed, he says, “Reid is reluctant to allow knowledge even that external objects produce our conceptions of what seem to us to be external objects” (ibid.). While the above passages—like Reid’s remarks on perceptual error (219–22)—may be a corrective to glib attributions of doctrines of direct perception and direct perceptual knowledge to Reid, Nichols’ interpretation of them has Reid seriously entertaining some kind of “perceptual skepticism” (218). Yet, Reid’s view seems to be that “the perception of external objects by our senses” is pleonastic (see Hamilton edition of Reid...

Seeing with the Hands, Touching with the Eyes: Vision, Touch and the Enlightenment Spatial Imaginary

ABSTRACTBlindness has been a topic of great interest for philosophers, and the centrality of the so-called Molyneux problem explicitly raises questions concerning visual and tactile experience of the blind. Begun as a purely speculative philosophical exercise before ophthalmic operations could be performed, the debate continues and is examined here in relation to current work in psychology and neuropsychology. From debates and correspondence in the seventeenth century onwards, sparked by this hypothetical question, first-person accounts of the blind were sought to bolster the philosophical speculations. The question asked by Molyneux is crucial in Enlightenment philosophy, and is discussed in a series of dialogs between philosophers such as Locke, Berkeley, Descartes and especially Diderot. This paper shows how a philosophical debate rooted in a distinct period in history has continued to excite the attention of those who attempt to draw together a psychological philosophy of sensory-spatial experience. In particular, the Molyneux problem concentrated on the interaction of the visual and the tactile, of hands and eyes, and how they are involved in spatial cognition. The legacy of these debates concerning the spatial imaginary of the blind remain pertinent to this day.

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

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.

Kant on Molyneux's Problem

In the context of the critical philosophy, Kant did not have anything to say about Molyneux's problem; about the question, that is, that Molyneux asked Locke:1 would a newly sighted person be able ...

Color, Space and Figure in Locke: An Interpretation of the Molyneux Problem

Color, Space and Figure in Locke: An Interpretation of the Molyneux Problem

Molyneux's Problem: Three Centuries of Discussion on the Perception of Forms. Marjolein Degenaar , Michael J. Collins

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsMolyneux's Problem: Three Centuries of Discussion on the Perception of Forms. Marjolein Degenaar , Michael J. Collins J. Scott HaugerJ. Scott Hauger Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Isis Volume 88, Number 4Dec., 1997 Publication of the History of Science Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/383861 Views: 2Total views on this site Copyright 1998 History of Science Society, Inc.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Molyneux's Problem

Molyneux's Problem

Locke and Berkeley on the Molyneux Problem

Locke and Berkeley on the Molyneux Problem