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248 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY
While filling a gap in Leibniz scholarship, this paper takes into consid-
eration three further issues in Leibnizs account of perception: whether
perceptual representations are a species of thought, how perceptual
representations are employed in their task of relating the perceiver to
the external world, and how and to what degree perceptual learning
influences perceptual representations. This paper should also be of
interest to those concerned with how perceptual representations are
integrated, a topic known today as cross-modal integration.9 I begin
with a critical issue for any representationalist account that incorporates
distinct kinds of representation, the ambiguity of recruitment strategies
for identifying objects in novel sensory formats such as the one faced by
Molyneuxs once-blind subject.
Figure 1.
could not learn them by sight without touch, nor could someone else
learn them by sight without touch. (RB II.ix.8, 137)
Same-Representations Passage (SR):
These two geometries, the blind mans and the paralytics, must come
together, and agree, and indeed ultimately rest on the same ideas,
even though they have no images in common. Which shows yet again
how essential it is to distinguish images from exact ideas which are
composed of definitions. (RB II.ix.8, 137)
Work-It-Out View
As suggested above, the RP and SS passages combine to provide a
coherent interpretation of Leibnizs answer: the once-blind recruit
the touch-based representations of shape and rationally work out the
shared structure to determine which visually presented shape is which.
LEIBNIZ ON MOLYNEUXS QUESTION 251
Yes No
Q2: Does the
once-blind access Work-it-out View
Yes
representations (RP) X
by conscious
Mutual Common Sense
reflection?
No Translation View (SR)
View (SS)
Figure 2.
Mutual-Translation View
In his study of Leibnizs philosophy of mind, Robert McRae briefly dis-
cusses Leibnizs answer to Molyneuxs question:
Leibniz is less interested in whether the man could solve the problem
than in the exact correlations which must hold between the visual
and tactile appearances, for however dissimilar qualitatively the ap-
pearances, both are expressions of the same thing and therefore must
be mutually translatable by the perceiver.21
McRaes analysis sets Leibnizs answer to Molyneuxs question in a
backdrop of how different expressions are mutually translatable:
However dissimilar qualitatively the appearances, both are expres-
sions of the same thing and therefore must be mutually translatable
by the perceiver. A consequence of this possibility is that any two
different expressions will have the same relation to one another that
each has to the thing which they both express.22
The main support for the mutual translation of expressions or repre-
sentations is passages where Leibniz uses examples of corresponding
geometrical expressions of the same shape:
The projections in perspective of the conic sections of the circle show
that one and the same circle may be represented by an ellipse, a pa-
rabola, and a hyperbola, and even by another circle, a straight line
and a point. (T, 357)23
McRaes account appears to answer only Q1 regarding the nature of
the representations recruited by the perceiver. However, he adds in
his general account of Leibnizs theory of perception that the mutually
translatable structure of shape representations precludes the need
for intellectual effort; the sensory representations of the shapes will
just be available to the perceiver for use in any of the sensory formats
presented:
LEIBNIZ ON MOLYNEUXS QUESTION 253
which contains both the notions of particular senses, which are clear
but confused, and the notions of the common sense, which are clear
and distinct. (AG 187, letter to Queen Sophie Charlotte, 1702)
These passages, together with the SR passage, which suggests that a
common representation is recruited for shape recognition, offer a viable
textual case for the plausibility of the common-sense view of Leibnizs
answer. In answer to Q1, common representations, available at birth,26
avail recognition capability once they are triggered by the senses. The
manner in which the newly sighted access these concepts, the concern
of Q2, requires an understanding of how the faculty of common sense
functions, which I briefly discuss in the conclusion to this paper, and
whether it requires the conscious use of reason. Regarding the latter
point, in the letter to Queen Sophie, Leibniz claims that common sense
is an unconscious use of imagination, wherein representations related
to different sense modalities are found united by an internal sense
... called the imagination. In light of this passage the common-sense
view sponsors a nonrational, unconscious process for accessing common
representations. This view will be substantially developed below after
assessing the viability of its competitors.
the color green, we are quite unable to discern the ideas of blue and
yellow within our sensory idea of green, simply because it is a confused
idea (RB IV.vi.7, 403). According to Leibniz, sensory representations
appear to have no content available to consciousness, much less rational
exertion. This is problematic for premise (1) of the work-it-out view and
premise (B) of the mutual-translation view. The argument against these
premises is as follows:
a. Sensory representations are clear and confused.
b. Clear and confused representations do not share consciously
accessible structural features.
c. So, sensory representations do not possess shared consciously
accessible structural features. (~1 and ~B)
As the quotes above suggest, there is strong textual support for each of
the premises above. In addition, having no accessible structural features,
it is not at all clear what to make of a Leibnizian sensory representation
of shape. At best, visually presented shapes are mere sensations with
no coherent spatiality, a multiform patchwork of colors with a confused
structure opaque to analysis. The sensory representations of shape spe-
cific to touch are similarly opaque in structure and would not provide a
basis for shape recognition.
This is not to say that the blind cannot possess shape representations,
for Leibniz himself suggests that the blind can, in fact, learn geometry.
In a passage immediately preceding SS, he writes:
If there werent that way of recognising shapes, a blind man couldnt
learn the rudiments of geometry by touch, nor could a sighted person
learn them by sight without touch. However, we find that men born
blind can learn geometry, and indeed always have some rudiments of
a natural geometry; and we find that geometry is mostly learned by
sight alone without employing touch, as must be done by a paralytic
or by anyone else to whom touch is virtually denied. (RB II.ix.8, 137)
It appears that, for Leibniz, the blind possess representations of shape
that are not sensory but are, rather, founded on geometrical knowledge.
But, according to the work-it-out and interchangeability views, such
representations are not recruited for shape recognition. How might
sensory representations enjoy accessible structural features for Leibniz?
6. Conclusion
As suggested in the introduction to this paper, Leibnizs affirmative reply
to Molyneuxs question is located within a discussion of the isomorphic
260 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY
This view provides a different reading of the RP passage that does not
demand rational exertion, only the unconscious application of rational
principles, a reading supported by a further passage:
My view rests on the fact that in the case of the sphere there are no
distinguished points on the surface of the sphere taken in itself, since
everything there is uniform and without angles, whereas in the case
of the cube there are eight points which are distinguished from all
the others. (RB II.ix.8, 137)
So, in the case of a tactile representation of a sphere, the imagination
would find a commonality in the smooth character of the visual repre-
sentations wherein the commonality of shape and number would then
give rise to an inner perception of a sphere shape, thereby connecting
the common features of differently sensed experiences, triggering the
innate common representation of a sphere housed in the mind. The
imaginations comparison of the commonalities of the different sensory
ideas is not just of the qualities that each sense modality responds to,
but of the commonality shared by these qualitiesit is this commonality
to which the imagination sense is dedicated. The inner sense compares,
to again quote with emphasis, the numbers and shapes that are in color
... with the numbers and shapes that are in tactile qualities (AG 187,
letter to Queen Sophie Charlotte, 1702). Thus, according to Leibniz,
single modalities give rise to experiences of shape and number but are
presented in a sensory format. The imagination disregards these formats,
attending only to their common spatial content, giving rise to an inner
sense of shape and number as united.
This description of how differently sensed experiences come together
and agree is quite different from the consciously reflective process sug-
gested by other commentators. In particular, the use of the imagination
by the common sense is perceptual rather than intellectual. We must,
however, look to recent work from the cognitive sciences31 to discern
more finely how the imagination might be unconsciously employed by
a common sense.32
Gordon College
NOTES
sophical Essays, trans. and ed. Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber (Indianapolis,
IN: Hackett, 1989); L for Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters, ed. L. E.
Loemker (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1969).
2. Molyneuxs question appeared in the second (1694) and later editions
of Lockes An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter H. Nidditch
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), hereafter referred to as Essay. Leibniz likely
first read Molyneuxs question in Pierre Costes 1700 French translation, as his
English copy was of the first edition (1690) and did not contain the question.
See AG 291 and RB viii.
3. While Locke agreed to both Molyneuxs negative reply and his stated
reasons, his additional comments have beguiled many scholars. For a recent
discussion, see M. Bruno and E. Mandelbaum, Lockes Answer to Molyneuxs
Thought Experiment, History of Philosophy Quarterly 27, no. 2 (2010): 16580.
4. As the editors of the Cambridge edition to New Essays point out, Leibniz
cannot have seen Lockes Essay as a threat, or as a landmark in terms of which
he could usefully locate himself. Rather, he took it as a rich source of doctrines
and arguments on which he could use his own philosophy (RB ix).
5. As Robert McRae writes, Leibniz is less interested in whether the man
could solve the problem than in the exact correlations which must hold between
the visual and tactile appearances. Robert McRae, Leibniz: Perception, Apper-
ception, and Thought (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976), 22.
6. This isomorphism is discussed by Leibniz just prior to his discussion of
Molyneuxs question, where he writes that there exists a certain precise and
natural relationship between what is projected and the projection which is made
from it, with each point on the one corresponding through a certain relation
with a point on the other (RB II.viii.15 131). In his reply to the question, Leib-
niz refers to Gerard Desargues (RB II.ix.8 138), a French mathematician who
proved that certain geometrical features of shape were preserved by perspectival
projections. This was a likely source of Leibnizs own account of perception as
expression. See Chris Swoyer, Leibnizian Expression, Journal of the History
of Philosophy 33, no. 1 (1995): 6599.
7. There are several commentators who have offered this general interpreta-
tion of Leibnizs answer. They include McRae, Leibniz: Perception, Apperception,
and Thought, 22; Gareth Evans, Molyneuxs Question, in Collected Papers,
36499 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985); Alessandra C. Jacomuzzi, Pietro
Kobau, and Nicola Bruno, Molyneuxs Question Redux, Phenomenology and the
Cognitive Sciences 2, no. 4 (2003): 25580; and James van Cleve, Reids Answer
to Molyneuxs Question, The Monist 90, no. 2 (2007): 25170.
8. Leibniz does not use the term common sensible in his reply. I take this
more familiar term to be equivalent to common representation, a phrase I use
throughout the remainder of this paper.
9. A helpful introduction to the field of sensory integration in psychology
is found in Barry E. Stein and M. Alex Meredith, The Merging of the Senses
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993).
LEIBNIZ ON MOLYNEUXS QUESTION 263
10. Samuel Levey, Leibniz on Precise Shapes and the Corporeal World,
in Leibniz: Nature and Freedom, ed. Donald Rutherford and J. A. Cover, 6984
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), cf. 7677.
11. See Robert Brandoms discussion of this feature in Leibnizs represen-
tationalism in Leibniz and Degrees of Perception, Journal of the History of
Philosophy 19, no. 4 (1981): 44779.
12. Leibniz generally uses the terms image and idea to describe sensory
representations of sight, touch, etc. He generally reserves the terms concept
and sometimes exact idea in reference to definitional representations. For
instance, in his answer to Molyneuxs question, he states, ... distinguish images
from exact ideas which are composed of definitions (RB II.ix, 137) Throughout
this paper, I will refer to all these kinds of mental content in general as repre-
sentations, distinguishing the imagist form as sensory representations and
the definitional form as common representations.
13. Nicholas Jolley provides one basis for Leibnizs ambiguity: Leibniz
himself often seems uncertain about the precise nature of his dispute with
Locke, and a note of exasperation disturbs the surface of the Nouveaux Es-
sais. Nicholas Jolley, Leibniz and Locke on Essences, in Leibniz: Critical and
interpretive Essays, ed. Michael Hooker, 196208 (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1982). Though Jolleys point concerns Leibnizs discussion
of Lockes nominalism in book III, it may help account for some ambiguity in
Leibnizs affirmative reply to Molyneuxs question in book II.
14. Passages are categorized by the kind of strategy they suggest.
15. A fourth interpretation suggested by Jesse Prinz claims that Leibniz
thought that common representations would be rationally employed by the once-
blind in his recognition of the shapes. See Jesse Prinz, Furnishing the Mind:
Concepts and Their Perceptual Basis (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 133.
Though this fits nicely in the conceptual rubric portrayed by Figure 2, fitting
the X top right box, there is no textual evidence to support this as a viable
interpretation of Leibnizs answer to Molyneuxs question.
16. Evans Molyneuxs Question, table, 381.
17. Van Cleve, Reids Answer to Molyneuxs Question, 25253.
18. Jacomuzzi et al., Molyneuxs Question Redux, 83.
19. See Kants Critique of Pure Reason, A 271, B 327) and Jonathan Bennetts
Kants Analytic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 55. McRaes
devastating critique of this interpretation in Leibniz: Perception, Apperception,
and Thought has been further advanced by G. H. R Parkinson, The Intel-
lectualization of Appearances: Aspects of Leibnizs Theory of Sensation and
Thought, in Leibniz: Critical and Interpretive Essays, 320.
20. One way to state the difference between the common-sense interpreta-
tion of Leibniz and that of Evans is to change the placement of Leibnizs position
from a B position to a V position in the chart of answers to Molyneuxs
question provided by Evans, Molyneuxs Question, 381.
264 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY