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

  • Morgan, Michael J.
Date:
1977
Catalogue details

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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    MOLYNEUX'S QUESTION if it were only naturalists who could see through microscopes, and astronomers through telescopes; if magnifying devices were larger than those which reduced objects; if those which brought objects nearer were shorter than those which caused them to appear far off; and not comprehending why he was unable to feel the 'relief copy' which according to him was made by a mirror, he exclaimed, 'Here is a device that brings two senses into conflict; a more perfect device would recon¬ cile the two — except that, even so, the objects would be no more real. Perhaps a still more perfect and less deceiving device would make them disappear and would advise us of the error.' 'What, in your opinion, is the eye?' he was asked by M. de 'An organ which is affected by the air in the same way that my hand is affected by a stick.' We were impressed by this reply, and while we were looking at one another with admiration, he continued, 'The analogy is so close, that when I place my hand between your eyes and an object, you see my hand and not the object, and the same thing happens to me when I look for one object with my stick, and find another instead.' Madame, open the Dioptrique of Descartes, and you will find there the phenomena of vision related to those of touch, and illustrations full of men occupied in seeing with sticks. Neither Descartes nor those who have followed him have been able to give a clearer conception of vision. We did not think to question him concerning painting and writing, but it is obvious that his analogy would have stood up to all question¬ ings, and I have no doubt that he would have compared reading to looking for a needle with a large stick. We spoke to him only of perspec¬ tive drawings, which have so much in common with the representa¬ tions in mirrors, and at the same time so many differences; and we perceived that they gave him the same trouble as mirrors, and that he was tempted to think that, as the looking-glass paints objects, so the painter in order to represent them had to paint on a mirror. We saw him threading extremely fine needles. Could I ask you, Madame, to interrupt your reading at this point, and to see how well you would do in his place? Should you find the task impossible, I will tell you how he manages it. He puts the eye of the needle transversely between his lips, and in the same direction as that of the mouth, and then with the help of his tongue and suction, he pulls in the thread with his breath. (Of course, this will not work if the thread is too big for the eye, but in those circumstances a sighted person would have the same difficulty.] His memory for sounds is extraordinary, and he observes as much diversity in voices as we do in faces: they have for him an infinity of delicate nuances which escape us, because they have not got the same interest for us as for the blind. These nuances are for us like our own face; of all the men whom we have seen, the one that we remember least is our own self. We study faces only to recognize people, and we do not 34