Abstract

The paper contains analysis of Molyneux's question, one of the greatest problems of theory of perception. The problem can be put as, “Could a man born blind and once given the ability to see recognize how things known to him by touch look like?” The differences of Locke's, Berkeley's, Leibniz's and Reid's theoretical approaches to Molyneux’s question are shown. Locke and Berkeley answered the question negatively as for them experience is the only way to knowledge of things, and since the man born blind did not see things he could not know how they looked like. Leibniz gives an affirmative answer to Molyneux’s question as he assumes that we infer the idea of things through our understanding based on touch. Reid, like Locke and Berkeley, gives a negative answer because he thinks that through experience we become aware not only of visual and tactile properties of things but also about relation of different properties. Since man born blind did not have such an experience, Reid concludes, he cannot know how objects look like. Empirical studies mentioned in the paper cannot give the answer to the Molyneux’s problem either, because they can be interpreted in favour of each theoretical position. This problem should be solved by joining up philosophical and empirical approaches.