The arguments put forward wereusually concerned with the relation between visual and tactualsensations or between visual and tactual notions of the form ofobjects.If the Learned and Ingenious Author of the Forementiond Treatise thinkthis Problem Worth his Consideration and Answer, He may at any timeDirect it to One that Much Esteems him, and is,During the course of the twentieth century, the main interest inMolyneux’s problem has been historical. Posted on April 18, 2011 by admin In 1688, an Irish polymath named William Molyneux wrote the English philosopher John Locke a letter in which he posed a vexing question: Could a blind person, upon suddenly gaining the ability to see, recognize an object by sight that he’d previously known by feel? Molyneux's problem solved at last! They were convinced that in both cases seeing has to be learned,and that Molyneux’s question had, therefore, to be answered in thenegative.Philosophers, psychologists and other scientists have also tried tosolve the Molyneux problem by making use of alternative approaches,both old and new. Some philosophersbelieved that the question implied that the man should be told inadvance that he would be presented with a globe and cube, whereasothers thought that he should not be provided with thisinformation.On 7 July 1688 the Irish scientist and politician William Molyneux(1656–1698) sent a letter to John Locke in which he put forwarda problem which was to awaken great interest among philosophers andother scientists throughout the Enlightenment and up until the presentday.
The discovery was also regarded asdisproving Berkeley’s theory of vision.In the first instance, philosophers considered it to be impossiblethat a man born blind should be able to acquire sight.
Learning how to use sensory substitutionsystems has been considered a good approximation to Molyneux’sproblem, since such systems present information normally handled byone modality, such as vision, to another sense, typically audition ortouch, using forms of coding novel to the user. A few authors have written brief and incomplete histories ofthe problem.
It was first formulated by William Molyneux, and notably referred to in John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
7) argued that moderndevelopmental psychology and neurophysiology suggest that Locke’sreaction to Molyneux’s question was right, but for the wrongreasons.On Saturday 7 July 1688 William Molyneux wrote a letter to John Lockesetting out for the first time his problem concerning the person bornblind:Some philosophers were even more radically critical of operations likethat performed by Cheselden.
Whereas Cheselden had only noticed what hispatient observed in more or less natural circumstances, laterophthalmologists performed experiments which showed whether theirpatients were able to see form, size, distance, etc.