- Molyneux's Problem
Molyneux's Problem is an unsolved problem in philosophy. In response to
John Locke 's "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding ", scientist and politicianWilliam Molyneux responded to Locke's empiricist writings by posing a problem that involves the differences between modes ofperception s and true understanding. The problem can be stated in brief, "if a man born blind can feel the differences betweenshape s such assphere s andcube s, could he similarly distinguish those objects by sight if given the ability to see?" [John Locke , "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding ", book 2, chapter 9: [http://limitedinc.blogspot.com/2007/04/things-about-arabick-influence-on-john.html] quote|"I shall here insert a problem of that very ingenious and studious promoter of real knowledge, the learned and worthy Mr. Molyneux, which he was pleased to send me in a letter some months since; and it is this:- "Suppose a man born blind, and now adult, and taught by his touch to distinguish between a cube and a sphere of the same metal, and nighly of the same bigness, so as to tell, when he felt one and the other, which is the cube, which the sphere. Suppose then the cube and sphere placed on a table, and the blind man be made to see: quaere, whether by his sight, before he touched them, he could now distinguish and tell which is the globe, which the cube?" To which the acute and judicious proposer answers, "Not. For, though he has obtained the experience of how a globe, how a cube affects his touch, yet he has not yet obtained the experience, that what affects his touch so or so, must affect his sight so or so; or that a protuberant angle in the cube, that pressed his hand unequally, shall appear to his eye as it does in the cube."- I agree with this thinking gentleman, whom I am proud to call my friend, in his answer to this problem; and am of opinion that the blind man, at first sight, would not be able with certainty to say which was the globe, which the cube, whilst he only saw them; though he could unerringly name them by his touch, and certainly distinguish them by the difference of their figures felt. This I have set down, and leave with my reader, as an occasion for him to consider how much he may be beholden to experience, improvement, and acquired notions, where he thinks he had not the least use of, or help from them. And the rather, because this observing gentleman further adds, that "having, upon the occasion of my book, proposed this to divers very ingenious men, he hardly ever met with one that at first gave the answer to it which he thinks true, till by hearing his reasons they were convinced."]This problem has been addressed by many of the preeminent thinkers of the generation, with varying conclusions. Locke himself believed that sight and touch were entirely different sense perceptions and thus the blind man could not distinguish the sphere from the cube at first sight.
A similar problem was also addressed earlier in the 12th century by
Ibn Tufail (Abubacer), in hisphilosophical novel , "Hayy ibn Yaqdhan " ("Philosophus Autodidactus"). His version of the problem, however, dealt mainly withcolor s rather than shapes. [Muhammad ibn Abd al-MalikIbn Tufayl and Léon Gauthier (1981), "Risalat Hayy ibn Yaqzan", p. 5, Editions de la Méditerranée: [http://limitedinc.blogspot.com/2007/04/things-about-arabick-influence-on-john.html] quote|"If you want a comparison that will make you clearly grasp the difference between the perception, such as it is understood by that sect [the Sufis] and the perception as others understand it, imagine a person born blind, endowed however with a happy naturaltemperament , with a lively and firmintelligence , a surememory , a straight sprite, who grew up from the time he was an infant in a city where he never stopped learning, by means of thesense s he did dispose of, to know the inhabitants individually, the numerous species of beings, living as well as non-living, there, the streets and sidestreets, the houses, the steps, in such a manner as to be able to cross the city without a guide, and to recognize immediately those he met; the colors alone would not be known to him except by the names they bore, and by certain definitions that designated them. Suppose that he had arrived at this point and suddenly, his eyes were opened, he recovered his view, and he crosses the entire city, making a tour of it. He would find no object different from the idea he had made of it; he would encounter nothing he didn’t recognize, he would find the colors conformable to the descriptions of them that had been given to him; and in this there would only be two new important things for him, one the consequence of the other: aclarity , a greaterbrightness , and a great voluptuousness."] [Diana Lobel (2006), "A Sufi-Jewish Dialogue: Philosophy and Mysticism in Baḥya Ibn Paqūda's Duties of the Heart", p. 24,University of Pennsylvania Press , ISBN 0812239539.]ee also
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Unsolved problems in philosophy References
External links
*http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/molyneux-problem/
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