Molyneux's question : vision, touch, and the philosophy of perception / Michael J. Morgan.

  • Morgan, Michael J. (Michael John), 1942-
Date:
1977
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: Molyneux's question : vision, touch, and the philosophy of perception / Michael J. Morgan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    1 The background to Molyneux's question 'When winter blows upon the Aurelian mountains, and the east wind in those parts has broken the peace of the night and disturbed its quiet, then is the time to go over in the mind what the wisest men have illuminated with the sharp sword of their intellect, piercing the dark¬ ness . . . Much has been written and argued by the ancients on these subjects but they are only briefly touched upon in this further problem which now arises . . 'Which is that?' asked Fabius. 'This', I replied, 'which can be asked of any and all genera and species; whether they really exist, or are merely perceived by the intellect alone and the mind, whether they are corporeal or incorporeal and whether once separated they can be attached to sensible objects. This then is the first question, whether genera and species are true, or whether they are but naked and empty figments of the imagination. Thus Boethius, in the commentary on the Isagoge of Porphyry, described the question that, in one way or another, has domi¬ nated so much of European philosophy; whether abstractions [Universals]^ such as 'circle' or 'dog' have any real existence apart from particulars, or whether they are just names for collec¬ tions of objects with which we are individually acquainted through sensory experience. In the Middle Ages the controversy between 'realists' and 'nominalists' reached its climax in the famous arguments between William of Champeaux and Abelard. On that occasion it was settled fairly decisively by Abelard's skill in favour of the nominalists, but the issue was far from dead. In another guise, it crops up again in the seventeenth century as one influence on the attack of the empiricists upon scholastic philosophy. Locke's philosophy of empiricism main- ^ A. Fremantle (ed.), The Age of Belief (New York: Mentor Books, 1955). ^ For a general account, see H. Staniland, Universels (London: Macmill-an, 1973). 5