Blindness And Enlightenment An Essay

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.

This volume studies two related problematics. First, Enlightenment ideas about human difference in general and blindness in particular were often at war with one another. Second, conflicts concerning Enlightenment thought continued in the lives and writings of many important blind thinkers, from Helen Keller in the late nineteenth century through the middle of the twentieth century, to present-day academics who are blind and their sighted allies, some activists and some not. Despite the continuation of this second problematic, blind persons made substantial progress in directing their own narratives, individually and collectively, and in both the personal and the political arenas. Many present-day activists attempt, either explicitly or implicitly, to complete or expand the unfinished positive work of the Enlightenment, seeking to update and stretch the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen to include and to assure the rights and participation of persons with disabilities. Ironically, many modern radical disability advocates implicitly or explicitly use the discourses of the Enlightenment in their attempts to harmonize discordant aspects of the eighteenth century tradition or to challenge that century’s enduring contradictions. In attempting to unlock the ideas of various Enlightenment thinkers, blind thought leaders and their allies have made significant progress in providing greater scope, freedom and rights to the blind and in fostering understanding of what it means to be blind—an important step in combating the pervasive fear of blindness that still haunts society. Author Frank Wyman examines three significant questions that Enlightenment thinkers posed about people who were blind: What is the capacity of a person who is blind to function in civil society? What is the nature of blind experience? What rights should people who are blind have in society? This volume explores the narratives of many blind thought leaders, including the remarkable Helen Keller, to determine how these questions, and the answers to them, changed over time.

Dans ce texte, Denis Diderot se penche sur la question de la perception visuelle, un sujet renouvel� � l'�poque par le succ�s d'op�rations chirurgicales permettant de donner la vue � certains aveugles de naissance. Les sp�culations sont nombreuses en ce temps-l� sur ce que la vue et l'usage qu'un individu peut en faire doivent � la seule perception, ou bien � l'habitude et l'exp�rience, par exemple pour se rep�rer dans l'espace, identifier des formes, percevoir les distances et les volumes, distinguer un tableau r�aliste de la r�alit�.Diderot explique qu'un aveugle qui se met soudainement � voir ne comprend pas imm�diatement ce qu'il voit, et qu'il mettra du temps � faire le rapport entre son exp�rience des formes et des distances acquises par le toucher, et les images qu'il per�oit avec son oeil.

A groundbreaking volume from leading scholars exploring disability studies using a political theory approach.

The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate students, and independent scholars. Medical theory and practice of the 1700s developed rapidly, as is evidenced by the extensive collection, which includes descriptions of diseases, their conditions, and treatments. Books on science and technology, agriculture, military technology, natural philosophy, even cookbooks, are all contained here. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++ Harvard University Houghton Library N002082 London: printed for Richard Dymott, 1773. v, [3],134p., 4 plates; 12°

A literary, historical and philosophical discussion of attitudes to blindness by the sighted, and what the blind 'see'Why has there been a persistent fascination by the sighted, including philosophers, poets and the public, in what the blind 'see'? Is the experience of being blind, as Descartes declared, like 'seeing with the hands'? What happens on the rare occasions when surgery allows previously blind people to see for the very first time? And how did evidence from early experimental surgery inform those philosophical debates about vision and touch? These questions and others were prompted by a question that the Irish scientist, Molyneux, asked an English philosopher, Locke, in 1688, but which was to have implications for British empiricism, French sensationism, and the beginnings of psychology that outlasted the long tail of the Enlightenment. Through an unfolding historical and philosophical narrative the book follows up responses to this question in Britain and France, and considers it as an early articulation of sensory substitution, the substitution of one sense (touch) for another (vision). This concept has influenced attitudes towards blindness, and technologies for the blind and vision impaired, to this day.Key FeaturesUnfolds the history of 'blindness' from 17th century that shades into the beginnings of psychologyQuestions the assumed centrality of vision and the eye in Enlightenment philosophy and scienceTraces the core idea of 'sensory substitution' from hypothetical speculations in the 17th century to present day technologies for the blind and vision impaired