The reports of individuals who have had their vision restored after a long period of blindness suggest that, immediately after regaining their vision, such individuals are not able to recognize shapes by vision alone. It is often assumed that the empirical literature on sight restoration tells us something important about the relationship between visual and tactile representations of shape. However, I maintain that, immediately after having their sight restored, at least some newly sighted individuals undergo visual experiences that instantiate basic (...) shape phenomenology but which do not present (that is, neither represent nor involve acquaintance with) the corresponding shape properties. Consequently, the empirical literature on sight restoration tells us something important about the role that perceptual phenomenology plays in our perceptual awareness of an object’s properties—it tells us that the properties presented by perceptual experiences are not determined by or “built into” perceptual phenomenology. In addition, I maintain that the evidence concerning sight restoration suggests an alternative theory concerning the role that sensory phenomenology plays in our perceptual awareness of an object’s properties. Specifically, it suggests that, while not inherently representational, sensory phenomenal properties can serve as vehicles for the representation of an object’s properties. (shrink)

Experts from wine tasters to radiologists to bird watchers have all undergone perceptual learning-long-term changes in perception that result from practice or experience. Philosophers have been discussing such cases for centuries, from the 14th-century Indian philosopher Vedanta Desika to the 18th-century Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid, and into contemporary times. -/- This book uses recent evidence from psychology and neuroscience to show that perceptual learning is genuinely perceptual, rather than post-perceptual. It also offers a taxonomy for classifying cases in the philosophical (...) literature. In some cases, perceptual learning involves changes in how one attends; in other cases, it involves a learned ability to differentiate two properties, or to perceive two properties as unified. Connolly uses this taxonomy to rethink several domains of perception in terms of perceptual learning, including multisensory perception, color perception, and speech perception. -/- As a whole, the book offers a theory of the function of perceptual learning. Perceptual learning embeds into our quick perceptual systems what would be a slower task were it to be done in a controlled, cognitive manner. A novice wine taster drinking a Cabernet Sauvignon might have to think about its features first and then infer the type of wine, while an expert can identify it immediately. This learned ability to immediately identify the wine enables the expert to think about other things like the vineyard or the vintage of the wine. More generally, perceptual learning serves to free up cognitive resources for other tasks. This book offers a comprehensive empirically-informed account, and explores the nature, scope, and theoretical implications of perceptual learning. (shrink)

Molyneux’s question famously asks about whether a newly sighted subject might immediately recognize, by sight alone, shapes that were already familiar to her from a tactile point of view. This paper addresses three crucial points concerning this puzzle. First, the presence of two different questions: the classic one concerning visual recognition and another one concerning vision-for-action. Second, the explicit distinction, reported in the literature, between ocular and cortical blindness. Third, the importance of making reference to our best neuroscientific account on (...) vision, ‘the two visual systems model’, in order to better address Molyneux’s problem. Then, by offering a new, deeper analysis of the relation between, and, this paper suggests that the subjects of Molyneux’s two different questions show the same visual impairment as brain-damaged subjects with different lesions of the visual cortex. In particular, the subject of the first question shows the same impairment in visual recognition as a visual agnosic subject, while the subject of the second question shows the same visual impairment in visuomotor processing as an optic ataxic subject. These impairments still hold even if ocular processing is restored. Therefore, I suggest the following. For the first classic question, the required experimental setting cannot be properly reached. By contrast, concerning the second question, based on the interpretation we select, either the answer is negative, or, as with the first question, the experimental setting cannot be properly reached. This proposal constitutes, with the other approaches offered in the literature, a further attempt to tackle the enormous complexity of Molyneux’s puzzle. (shrink)

We represent shape in both sight and touch, but how do these abilities relate to one another? This issue has been discussed in the context of Molyneux's question of whether someone born blind could, upon being granted sight, identify shapes visually. Some have suggested that we might look to real‐world cases of sight restoration to illuminate the relation between visual and tactual shape representations. Here, I argue that newly sighted perceivers should not be relied on in this way because they (...) are unlikely to form the kinds of shape representations responsible for cross‐modal recognition in normally sighted perceivers. I then argue that the available evidence makes a compelling case for the type identity view, on which the visual and tactual representations responsible for cross‐modal recognition are type‐identical. (shrink)

In 1688 the Irish scientist and politician William Molyneux sent a letter to the philosopher John Locke. In it, he asked him a question: could someone who was born blind, and able to distinguish a globe and a cube by touch, be able to immediately distinguish and name these shapes by sight if given the ability to see? The philosophical puzzle offered in Molyneux's letter fascinated not only Locke, but major thinkers such as Leibniz, Berkeley, Diderot, Reid, and numerous others (...) including psychologists and cognitive scientists today. Does such a question represent a philosophical puzzle or a problem that can be solved by experimental tests? Can vision be fully restored after blindness? What is the relation between vision and touch? Are the senses linked through learning or bound at birth? Molyneux's Question and the History of Philosophy is a major collection of essays that explore the long-standing issues Molyneux's problem presents to philosophy of mind, perception and the senses. In addition, the volume considers the question from an interdisciplinary angle, examines the pre-history of the question, and aspects of it that have been ignored, such as perspectives from religion and disability. As such, Molyneux's Question and the History of Philosophy presents a set of philosophically rich, empirically informed, and scientifically rigorous original investigations into this famous puzzle. It will be of great interest to students and researchers in philosophy, psychology, and the cognitive sciences including neuroscience, neurobiology and ophthalmology, as well as those studying the mind, perception and the senses. (shrink)