{"id":8443,"date":"2019-05-22T16:07:45","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/molyneux-s_question\/"},"modified":"2019-05-22T16:07:45","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:07:45","slug":"molyneux-s_question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/molyneux-s_question\/","title":{"rendered":"Molyneux\u2019s question"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 1688,&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.history.com\/topics\/john-locke\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/www.history.com\/topics\/john-locke?target=_self\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">John Locke<\/a>&nbsp;(1632-1704)published a question put to him by&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk\/Biographies\/Molyneux_William.html\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk\/Biographies\/Molyneux_William.html?target=_self\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">William Molyneux&nbsp;<\/a>&nbsp;1656-1698), which henceforthbecame known as Molyneux\u2019s question. &nbsp;Thisquestion asked whether an adult born blind, if restored to sight might be ableto identify and distinguish, with vision alone, objects that he\/she hadpreviously only experienced through touch. &nbsp;Molyneux, Locke, and a little later&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.iep.utm.edu\/berkeley\/\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/www.iep.utm.edu\/berkeley\/?target=_self\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">George Berkeley&nbsp;<\/a>&nbsp;1685-1753), were in agreement that the answer was \u2018no\u2019. &nbsp;Berkeley in particular, was of the view thatthe senses were quite distinct in nature providing completely different formsof information that were irreconcilable without the construction of cross-modalassociations through experience. &nbsp;The noanswer quite clearly implies an account of development in which infants andchildren have to learn to associate previously separate sensations acrossmultiple sense modalities. &nbsp;On the otherhand, a positive answer implies, rather as in the intersensory redundancyhypothesis, that infants and adults have perceptual access to a coherentmultisensory environment independent of experience. &nbsp;Since being posed, Molyneux\u2019s question has receivedconsiderable attention in philosophy and, later, psychology. &nbsp;It remains of seminal importance.<\/p>\n<p>See <a href=\"amodal\">Amodal<\/a>, <a href=\"developmental_differentiation\">Developmental differentiation<\/a>, <a href=\"developmental_integration\">Developmental integration<\/a>, <a href=\"intersensory_redundancy_hypothesis\">Intersensory redundancy hypothesis<\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/body><\/html><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1688,&nbsp;John Locke&nbsp;(1632-1704)published a question put to him by&nbsp;William Molyneux&nbsp;&nbsp;1656-1698), which henceforthbecame known as Molyneux\u2019s question. &nbsp;Thisquestion asked whether an adult born blind, if restored to sight might be ableto identify and distinguish, with vision alone, objects that he\/she hadpreviously only experienced through touch. &nbsp;Molyneux, Locke, and a little later&nbsp;George Berkeley&nbsp;&nbsp;1685-1753), were in agreement that &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/molyneux-s_question\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Molyneux\u2019s question&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-8443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-glossary","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8443\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}