Seeing with the hands : blindness, vision and touch after Descartes / Mark Paterson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Paterson, Mark, 1972- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Blind--History.

Blind.

Visual perception--History.

Visual perception.

Touch--History.

Touch.

History.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

viii, 228 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Other Title:

Blindness, vision and touch after Descartes

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, [2016]

Summary:

"Through an unfolding historical, philosophical and literary narrative that includes Locke, Molyneux and Berkeley in Britain, and Diderot, Voltaire and Buffon in France, this book explores how the Molyneux Question and its aftermath has influenced attitudes towards blindness by the sighted, and sensory substitution technologies for the blind and vision impaired, to this day." --back cover.

Contents:

Introduction: on questioning blindess and what the blind 'see'

'Seeing with the hands': Descartes, blindness, and vision

'Suppose a man born blind...': cubes and spheres, hands and eyes

Objects that 'touch'd his eyes': surgical experiments in the recovery of vision

Voltaire, Buffon, and blindness in France

The testimony of blind men: Diderot's Lettre

Reading with the fingers: tactile signs and the possibilities for a language of touch

Seeing with the tongue: sight through other means

Blindness, empathy, and 'feeling seeing': literary accounts of blind experience.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 207-221) and index.

ISBN:

9781474405317

1474405312

OCLC:

945894046