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Philosophical problems, cluster concepts, and the many lives of Molyneux’s question

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Abstract

Molyneux’s question, whether the newly sighted might immediately recognize tactilely familiar shapes by sight alone, has produced an array of answers over three centuries of debate and discussion. I propose the first pluralist response: many different answers, both yes and no, are individually sufficient as an answer to the question as a whole. I argue that this is possible if we take the question to be cluster concept of sub-problems. This response opposes traditional answers that isolate specific perceptual features as uniquely applicable to Molyneux’s question and grant viability to only one reply. Answering Molyneux’s question as a cluster concept may also serve as a methodology for resolving other philosophical problems.

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Notes

  1. See Frank Jackson,“Mind and Illusion,” in Nagasaw et al. (2004).

  2. See Byrne (2002).

  3. See Michael Tye, “Knowing What It Is Like: The Ability Hypothesis and the Knowledge Argument” in Ludlow et al. (2004).

  4. See David Chalmers, “Phenomenal Concepts and the Knowledge Argument” in Ludlow et al. (2004).

  5. Stalker (1994).

  6. Preston and Bishop (2002).

  7. Kirk (2006).

  8. Byrne (2006).

  9. Historically, the failure of the newly sighted to identify shapes was status quo, but even this admitted of multiple explanations For instance, though both Locke and the question’s author, William Molyneux, took the question as of support Empiricism, Molyneux argued that the question suggested the heterogeneity of the senses of sight and touch while Locke argued that the question showed how our visual perception requires perceptual learning or “improvement.” As Locke wrote: “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”. (Essay II.ix.8) What Locke’s own specific explanation amounts to is one of the more intriguing debates in Lockean scholarship. See Bruno (2010).

  10. Leibniz likely answered the question by utilizing geometrical images of touch and sight for shape recognition. Whether he thought that the imagination was employed unconsonsciously or consciously is discussed by Glenney (2012a).

  11. Campbell (1996) suggests that only small differences exist between tactile and visual experiences of shape, akin to differences in accent rather than language.

  12. This distinction between optical and cognitive blindness indicates that most blind subjects are in fact “double blind.” See Noë (2004: 12).

  13. For a recent review of these studies, see Cattaneo and Vecchi (2011: 98–102).

  14. It should be noted that many different experimental paradigms have been utilized in answer to Molyneux’s question, from testing eye movements of newborn infants (Streri and Gentaz 2003), to phosphene pattern recognition in blind subjects (Delbeke and Veraart 2006), to sensory substitution devices on sighted subjects (Pacherie 1997).

  15. For a review of empirical work on Molyneux’s question see, Molyneux’s Question: Section 5 Development as an Empirical Problem.” See Glenney (2012b).

  16. Regarding the quickness of recovery of Cheselden’s subject, Adam Smith writes, “In him this instinctive power, not having been exerted at the proper season, may, from disuse, have gone gradually to decay, and at last have been completely obliterated. Or, perhaps, (what seems likewise very possible,) some feeble and unobserved remains of it may have somewhat facilitated his acquisition of what he might otherwise have found it much more difficult to acquire.” (Smith 1795, Section 69).

  17. Degenaar claims that the cataract paradigm is the only method for testing Molyneux’s question, but cannot do so. Thus, there is no answer to the question. This seemingly “literalist” reading of Molyneux’s question poses a unique challenge to the plurality reply that is distinct from the sectarian views of Hopkins and others. For instance, on the literalist reading, the cataract paradigm is the only way to empirically study the question. But this is precisely the problem with the literalist reading. Taken literally, the question does not prescribe the specific testing paradigm of cataract removal. In addition, most cataract patients have limited luminance detection and some can even detect differences in color. Though lacking in perception of form, are these good test subjects, given the fact that they are not completely blind? A literalist reading fails to provide a non-arbitrary answer to this important question. Molyneux’s question lacks the kind of specificity that the literalist reading requires, offering neither a specific testing paradigm nor a distinctive subject pool. Thus, the literalist reading preferred by Degenaar is a non-starter. In addition, as I will argue, Held et al. (2011) outright undercuts Degenaar’s proposal.

  18. For a recent appraisal, see Devitt and Sterelny (1999).

  19. Gaut (2000: 26–27).

  20. Premises 1–3 are developed from Longworth and Scarantino (2010).

  21. Cheselden’s subject had previously experienced colors as an infant—his cataracts were not congenital—and with cataracts he could even discern some colors in good lighting conditions.

  22. George Berkeley (1933/1975) considered Cheselden’s report confirmation of his negative reply, as did many French Philosophers such as Voltaire (1738/1967). The more recent reports confirmed Cheselden’s findings for many scientists, including the influential psychologist (Hebb 1949).

  23. “Or whether he could know by his sight, before he stretched out his hand, whether he could not reach them, tho they were removed 20 or 1,000 feet from him?” Locke (1978), Vol. III, July 7, 1688, letter 1064, pp. 482–483.

  24. Molyneux was an advocate for the “new learning”—the experimental philosophy of the Royal Society that advocated Locke’s empiricism. He founded The Dublin Philosophical Society, translated works by Galileo and Descartes, and published many papers in the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions. He also worked on problems of vision and optics, writing treatises on the moon illusion, double vision, and telescopes later collected and published in his book Dioptrica Nova Molyneux (2000). This background gave him a sufficient understanding and interest in experimental design and problems in vision with little indication of an interest in the relationship between vision and touch, further suggesting an alternative motive for his question.

  25. It might even be said that the delayed testing of the subjects in the modified version strengthens the support for a negative answer regarding visual deprivation effects, as it shows that the subjects eventually do have the capacity for recognizing tactually familiar shapes by sight alone though decidedly not at first sight.

  26. In addition, these explanations exist on the same level of explanation and discipline of study. As Held (2009) explains, the later recognition of shapes by the newly sighted is evidence of the function of neural processes—the neural representations underlying visual shape recognition, processes which are not utilizable until further visual and tactile experiences enable cognitive re-mapping of the cross-modal transfer pathways.

  27. Molyneux’s stated answer is ambiguous about a number of particulars and distinctions now common to any analysis of Molyneux’s Question. For instance, he employs what appears to be a proto-phenomenological reply, focused on what must be the case given the nature of the experience of the newly sighted. However, the context of the question; written as a query to Locke whom clearly influenced the Molyneux’s thought on this topic, suggests that Molyneux’s point of concern was the epistemology of concepts and their acquisition by experience alone.

  28. Molyneux conflates precisely what individuates the senses: the different properties of objects to which they are tuned to acquire or the different experiences that they generate.

  29. See Stratton (1897) for an early study on the experiential effects of inverted goggle use and Linden et al. (1999) for an update.

  30. “Subjects, who wore prism-and mirror-inverting spectacles over periods of 6–10 days, showed a rapid visuomotor adaptation and were able to interact correctly with the surrounding world after a few days.” Linden et al. (1999: 480).

  31. Held et al. (2011: 533).

  32. See also Grice (1962), whose reflection on possible alien senses and their individuation clearly applies to an answer to Molyneux’s question, though is never explicitly applied.

  33. While this is not direct empirical evidence for affirming Molyneux’s question, as real world visual and tactile experience is allowed in the interim between the first and second tests, it is suggestive that a more direct test might be administered that blindfolds subjects in the process of healing between testing, using novel stimuli in both occasions. This would generate data that is both empirically true and philosophically relevant, and likely in the affirmative given the initial data from the modified cataract paradigm.

  34. Another way to put this objection is to say that Molyneux’s question is really an empirical question and outside the scope of philosophical analysis. Still another way to make this point is to exploit the now common claim that ‘software’ is reducible to ‘hardware,’ wherein talk about the functionality of cross-modal concepts is really just talk of the functionality of cross-modal pathways.

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    Brian R. Glenney

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Glenney, B.R. Philosophical problems, cluster concepts, and the many lives of Molyneux’s question. Biol Philos 28, 541–558 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-012-9355-x

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