[Revised entry by Brian Glenney, Gabriele Ferretti, and Marjolein Degenaar on January 8, 2026.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography]
Molyneux’s problem asks whether a person born blind, capable of distinguishing a sphere and a cube by touch, could, if their vision were restored, recognize these shapes by sight alone. This problem, posed by the Irish scientist and politician William Molyneux (1656 – 1698) to John Locke, who published it in his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1694), has ngaged…

Read the full article which is published on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (external link)