A Letter about the Blind for Those Who See

A Letter about the Blind for Those Who See PDF

Author: Denis Diderot

Publisher: Newcomb Livraria Press

Published:

Total Pages: 63

ISBN-13: 3989887327

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A new translation of Denis Diderot's 1751 "A Letter about the Blind for Those Who See" (Lettre sur les aveugles à l’usage de ceux qui voient) from the original French manuscript into American English. This edition contains an afterword by the translator on Diderot's philosophic legacy, a timeline of his works and life, and a glossary of philosophic terminology utilized in his works. This letter is a philosophical inquiry into the nature of perception and the limitations of human understanding- a key topic of the Enlightenment. Diderot addresses the concept of blindness, both literal and metaphorical, and argues that knowledge is not solely derived from visual perception. He explores the idea that individuals who are visually impaired might possess alternative ways of perceiving the world, challenging the prevailing belief that sight is the sole path to knowledge. This work is closely related to Diderot's overall body of work as it reflects his interest in epistemology and his quest for a broader understanding of human experience. Diderot's ideas on perception and sensory experience had a significant impact on later philosophers, such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty and his phenomenological approach to perception.

In the Mind's Eye

In the Mind's Eye PDF

Author: Alexandra K. Wettlaufer

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-11-08

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 9004489851

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This comparative, interdisciplinary study investigates the relationship between literature and the visual arts in France and Britain from 1750-1900. Through a close examination of the prose writings of Diderot, Baudelaire and Ruskin, read against the background of contemporary philosophy, aesthetics and theories of language, In the Mind’s Eye proposes a new interpretation of the influence and rivalries underlying the development of art criticism as a genre during this period. The visual impulse – the desire to transcend the limitations of language and make the reader see – is located within the historical traditions of ekphrasis, enargeia and the paragone, while in each chapter, the individual author’s theories of the mind, memory and imagination provide a critical framework for his stylistic experiments. In the Mind’s Eye presents an in-depth analysis of the cultural, theoretical and aesthetic implications of artistic border crossings, and by contextualizing the movement toward visual/verbal hybridity in the fiction and criticism of Diderot, Baudelaire and Ruskin, brings new perspectives to nineteenth-century studies in art and literature.

Blindness and Enlightenment: An Essay

Blindness and Enlightenment: An Essay PDF

Author: Kate E. Tunstall

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2011-08-18

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1441113452

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Blindness and Enlightenment presents a reading and a new translation of Diderot's Letter on the Blind. Diderot was the editor of the Encyclopédie, that Trojan horse of Enlightenment ideas, as well as a novelist, playwright, art critic and philosopher. His Letter on the Blind of 1749 is essential reading for anyone interested in Enlightenment philosophy or eighteenth-century literature because it contradicts a central assumption of Western literature and philosophy, and of the Enlightenment in particular, namely that moral and philosophical insight is dependent on seeing. Kate Tunstall's essay guides the reader through the Letter, its anecdotes, ideas and its conversational mode of presenting them, and it situates the Letter in relation both to the Encyclopedie and to a rich tradition of writing about and, most importantly, talking and listening to the blind.

Molyneux’s Problem

Molyneux’s Problem PDF

Author: M. Degenaar

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2007-08-26

Total Pages: 153

ISBN-13: 0585284245

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Suppose that a congenitally blind person has learned to distinguish and name a sphere and a cube by touch alone. Then imagine that this person suddenly recovers the faculty of sight. Will he be able to distinguish both objects by sight and to say which is the sphere and which the cube? This was the question which the Irish politician and scientist William Molyneux posed in 1688 to John Locke. Molyneux's question has intrigued a wide variety of intellectuals for three centuries. Those who have attempted to solve it include Berkeley, Reid, Leibniz, Voltaire, La Mettrie, Condillac, Diderot, Müller, Helmholtz, William James and Gareth Evans. This book is the first comprehensive survey of the history of the discussion about Molyneux's problem. It will be of interest to historians of both philosophy and psychology.

Reflections on Medical Ethics

Reflections on Medical Ethics PDF

Author: Jean-Pierre Cléro

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-02-08

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 3030652335

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This book questions the notions of person, personality, dignity, and other connected notions such as (informed) consent, and discusses new perspectives on categories that allow ethical debates in medicine to overcome morals and ordinary religious schemes. The book states that one has to be careful when thinking about situations in terms of notions and principles that have been obtained in similar situations. Though this book is mostly philosophical, it is also of great practical interest to healthcare givers. It warns caregivers not to rely too much on notions such as person, autonomy, and consent, which are supposedly firm but can be proven to be unreliable in spite of appearances. Furthermore, this work warns against a narrow anthropologisation of ethics which would make technophobian positions unavoidable. On the contrary, this book is open to robotics and offers – among other things - a sustained exploration of the notion of intimacy.

Exploring the Cultural History of Continental European Freak Shows and ‘Enfreakment’

Exploring the Cultural History of Continental European Freak Shows and ‘Enfreakment’ PDF

Author: Anna Kérchy

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2013-02-14

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 1443846422

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This collection offers cultural historical analyses of enfreakment and freak shows, examining the social construction and spectacular display of wondrous, monstrous, or curious Otherness in the formerly relatively neglected region of Continental Europe. Forgotten stories are uncovered about freak-show celebrities, medical specimen, and philosophical fantasies presenting the anatomically unusual in a wide range of sites, including curiosity cabinets, anatomical museums, and traveling circus acts. The essays explore the locally specific dimensions of the exhibition of extraordinary bodies within their particular historical, cultural and political context. Thus the impact of the Nazi eugenics programs, state Socialism, or the Chernobyl catastrophe is observed closely and yet the transnational dimensions of enfreakment are made obvious through topics ranging from Jesuit missionaries’ diabolization of American Indians, to translations of Continental European teratology in British medical journals, and the Hollywood silver screen’s colonization of European fantasies about deformity. Although Continental European freaks are introduced as products of ideologically-infiltrated representations, they also emerge as embodied subjects endowed with their own voice, view, and subversive agency.

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