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Concept information

Preferred term

Molyneux's question  

Definition(s)

  • The celebrated Molyneux's question was addressed by the polymath Dublin lawyer, politician, and mathematician William Molyneux to John Locke, and is mentioned by Locke in Book II, Chapter IX of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). The question was as follows:Suppose a man born blind, and now adult, and taught by his touch to distinguish between a cube and a sphere of the same metal…. Suppose then the cube and sphere placed on a table, and the blind man be made to see: query, whether by his sight, before he touched them he could now distinguish and tell which is the globe, which the cube … ? (Hoffman, p. [Source: Encyclopedia of Perception; Molyneux's Question]

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URI

http://data.loterre.fr/ark:/67375/N9J-VJZT60XK-7

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