In ''Letter on the Blind for the Use of those who can see'' (French: ''Lettre sur les aveugles à l'usage de ceux qui voient''),

Denis Diderot Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the '' Encyclopédie'' along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a promi ...

takes on the question of visual perception, a subject that, at the time, experienced a resurgence of interest due to the success of medical procedures that allowed surgeons to operate on cataracts (demonstrated in 1728 by William Cheselden and 1747 by Jacques Daviel) and certain cases of

blindness Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment� ...

from birth. Speculations were then numerous upon what the nature and use of vision was, and how much perception, habit, and experience allow individuals to identify forms in space, to perceive distances and to measure volumes, or to distinguish a realistic work of art from

reality Reality is the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system, as opposed to that which is only imaginary. The term is also used to refer to the ontological status of things, indicating their existence. In physical terms, r ...

. According to Diderot’s essay, a blind person who is suddenly able to see for the first time does not immediately understand what he sees, and he must spend some amount of time establishing rapports between his experience of forms and distances (understandings that he first acquired by

touch In physiology, the somatosensory system is the network of neural structures in the brain and body that produce the perception of touch ( haptic perception), as well as temperature ( thermoception), body position (proprioception), and pain. It ...

) and the images that were thereafter apparent to him by

sight Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding environment through photopic vision (daytime vision), color vision, scotopic vision (night vision), and mesopic vision (twilight vision), using light in the visible spectrum reflecte ...

Religion

In the work Diderot revealed his atheist stance, which was revolutionary at the time. He was imprisoned for that, but protection of people associated with the ''

Encyclopédie ''Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers'' (English: ''Encyclopedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts''), better known as ''Encyclopédie'', was a general encyclopedia publis ...

'' led to his liberation after a few months.

Bibliography

*''L'Aveugle et le philosophe, ou Comment la cécité fait penser'', ed. Marion Chottin (Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2009) * Kate E. Tunstall, ''Blindness and Enlightenment. An Essay. With a new translation of Diderot's Letter on the Blind'' (Continuum, 2011) * Michael Kessler, "A Puzzle Concerning Diderot’s Presentation of Saunderson’s Palpable Arithmetic," ''Diderot Studies'', 1981, n° 20, pp. 159–173. * Andrew Curran, "Diderot’s Revisionism: Enlightenment and Blindness in the ''Lettre sur les aveugles''," ''Diderot Studies'', 2000, n° 28, pp. 75–93. * John Pedersen, "La Complicité du lecteur dans l’œuvre de Diderot à propos de la ''Lettre sur les aveugles''," ''Actes du 6^ème Congrès des Romanistes Scandinaves'', Upsal, 11-15 août 1975, Stockholm, Almqvist & Wiksell, 1977, pp. 205–10. * Marie-Hélène Chabut, "La Lettre sur les aveugles : l’écriture comme écart," ''Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century'', 1992, n° 304, pp. 1245–49. * Gerhardt Stenger, "La Théorie de la connaissance dans la ''Lettre sur les aveugles''," ''Recherches sur Diderot et sur l’Encyclopédie'', Apr 1999, n° 26, pp. 99–111. * Mary Byrd Kelly, "Saying by Implicature: The Two Voices of Diderot in ''La Lettre sur les aveugles''," ''Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture'', 1983, n° 12, pp. 231–241. * M. L. Perkins, "The Crisis of Sensationalism in Diderot’s ''Lettre sur les aveugles''," ''Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century'', 1978, n° 174, pp. 167–88. * Christine M. Singh, "The ''Lettre sur les aveugles'': Its Debt to Lucretius," ''Studies in Eighteenth-Century French Literature'', Exeter, Univ. of Exeter, 1975, pp. 233–42.

External links

* (in French)
Lettre sur les aveugles à l'usage de ceux qui voient
' (1749 edition) *

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lettre sur les aveugles a l'usage de ceux qui voient 1749 books French books Philosophical literature