In the history of Western philosophy, Locke was a descartes opponent. Based on the argument of "universal agreement", Descartes asserted that there are certain ideas that are innate in the minds of people. Propositions such as "what exists" and "the same thing cannot exist and do not exist" are universally agreed upon, and do not need to be approved at all after careful consideration, so they are our innate knowledge. Locke, however, was adamantly opposed, arguing that idiots and children who lacked the capacity to reason were unaware of these principles, thus undermining the argument of "universal agreement." In Locke's view, without innate knowledge, our brains are initially just a blank slate, and all ideas are acquired through experience.
Since Locke's rebuttal to Descartes was more in logical theory than in practice, the concept of talent was not shaken and still occupied the mainstream position, and Leibniz once "liquidated" Locke from Descartes' position. By the eighteenth century, with the advent of Voltaire's Philosophical Correspondence, Locke's ideas were introduced to France, causing a great sensation. Both Condiac and Elvis became followers of Locke, while another Enlightenment thinker, Diderot, continued the task that Locke had not accomplished—to refute the idea of gifts from the realm of practice.
Denis Diderot (1713–1784)
<h1>The beginning and end of the creation of "On the Blind Man's Book"</h1>
In 1749, the biologist Ray Ao Miao performed a vaginal excision operation on a congenitally blind person, and Diderot was allowed to watch the whole process of the operation. But on the day the bandage was lifted, Lei Ao Miao turned away all philosophers. This upset Diderot, who longed to know his view of the world before and after the restoration of the blind, and wanted to test whether the blind man had the innate concept that Descartes had said. So he traveled twenty-five miles to interview another man born blind.
After returning to Paris, Diderot wrote "A Brief Treatise on the Blind for the Reference of the Discerning Man." In it, he said:
"If a philosopher who was born blind and deaf creates a man modeled after the people of Descartes, I assure you, madame, he will put his soul at the end of his finger; for from where his main sense and all his knowledge come."
Through fieldwork, Diderot came to the conclusion that ideas come from feelings. He believes that using different senses to perceive the world gives rise to different ideas. Blind people have no vision, they mainly rely on the sense of touch to understand the world, so their ideas are based on the sense of touch, forming another system of thought.
For example, for us, a "mirror" is an object with a smooth surface that reflects what we look like. For the natural blind, the "mirror" can not be smooth, it must have many convex marks for people to touch and distinguish, looking in the mirror is like rubbing mahjong, through the touch of the fingers to perceive their own appearance.
In this way, Descartes' argument for "general agreement" is completely shattered. Since our thoughts and knowledge are based on feelings, then the associated beliefs and ideas must also be based on this. If there were an animal with one more sense than we do, would their morality, religion, and philosophy be more perfect than ours? In their eyes, is our knowledge as absurd as that of the blind? Are the questions of existence, God, justice, matter, and spirit as narrow as the blind define a mirror based on their sense of touch? Diderot's thought eventually led to skepticism, and as a result he was persecuted by the church and the court.
When The Book of the Blind was published, it was not signed or published. But the jail knocked on didn't open the door of Diderot's house on time and arrested him "in the name of the king." At the time of the initial interrogation, Diderot also denied that he was the author of The Book of the Blind. However, after ten days of torture, he finally confessed everything in his confession, saying:
"I admit that 'Philosophical Thought', 'Jewelry', and 'On the Blind Man's Book' are all intellectual arrogance exposed by my momentary misconduct."
Although "On the Blind Man" brought Diderot a prison sentence and made him suffer, from the perspective of the history of philosophy, this book of thousands of dollars is by no means the product of "intellectual arrogance". On the one hand, it strikes at the concept of talent from the field of practice, and on the other hand, it depicts to us the world imagined by a born blind man.
Diderot's Encyclopedia
<h1>The world understood by the congenitally blind</h1>
For blind people, the proposition that "something exists" is not absolutely correct, because their understanding of "existence" is different from ours. We often say that "seeing is believing", whether things exist or not needs to be confirmed through our observation; and blind people have no eyes to observe, they can only perceive by touch, and when objects are touched, they exist. But for the untouchable planets in the sky, they are more inclined to think that they do not exist. When we tell blind people that there are many celestial bodies above their heads, they always have to be suspicious. Descartes had difficulty demanding that blind people accept the principle of "universal consent."
Blind people don't know the role of the eye, they think the eye is like a stick. The stick strikes at the object in front of it in order to identify directions; the eye also "taps" the air, discerning the obstacle in front of it. When you ask a congenitally blind person if they would like to have eyes, they will tell you that they would prefer to have a pair of long hands.
We know the world through the eyes, resulting in the concept of graphics; blind people perceive the world through their fingers, and they also have their own set of graphic theories, which the British blind numberist Sanderson has elaborated. Sanderson was blind at the age of one, but he wrote a book, Principles of Algebra, which defines concepts such as points, lines, surfaces, and angles. Diderot found that Sanderson's logic was similar to that of the subjective idealist, who was "only aware of his own existence." The blind Sanderson, like Berkeley, said that "to exist is to be perceived", and when my fingers touch objects, they exist; if objects leave my fingers, then they do not exist. My fingers depict the world as it is, and the world cannot be separated from my fingers.
The blind man touches a tight rope and gets the idea of a "straight line." If the finger leaves the rope, the idea of a "straight line" fades as the sense of touch disappears. There is no color in their minds, so they cannot form fixed graphic concepts, have no figurative thoughts, and always perceive things in an abstract way. That is why it is difficult for blind people to portray the world to us because they do not have concrete models in their ideas. They can only say, like idealism: What I can perceive is the world. When you ask him "what the world is like," he will answer you "The world is my finger" (the universe is my heart).
Because blind people think more abstractly than we do, they are simply natural metaphysicians.
<h1>Metaphysical and religious conceptions of the congenitally blind</h1>
Blind people have no vision, they touch objects, relying on imagination to depict what it looks like. It is as if the idealistic philosophers abandon external objects and sit in the grass hall, trying to understand the dao by understanding. These philosophers who like to talk imitate the blind man's practice, and depict the highest ontology such as "rational type", "thing-body" and "absolute spirit" according to imagination, which is indeed very attractive to other blind people who lack imagination, but in the eyes of the discerning person, it is just a strange theory.
Blind people feel differently than we do, and their imaginations are naturally very different. We all know that both metaphysics and religion are built on imagination. Philosophers and missionaries consider themselves to believe that what they believe in is the only truth, knowledge inherently written into people's ideas. But in the blind, what the blind think is completely different.
It is said that before Sanderson died, the sheikh had a conversation with him about whether God existed.
When the sheikh listed many miracles to support god's existence, Sanderson said, "Oh, sir! If you want me to believe God's word, you have to let me touch Him. Subjective idealism rejects objective idealism. So the sheikh appealed to authority, saying that newton, Leibniz, Clarke, and other geniuses believed in the existence of God. But what could be more reliable for a blind man than his own sense of touch? How could he believe that Newton and others had traveled to the boundaries of the universe and touched god's true body?
It is no easier to convince a blind man who is closed off from himself and superstitious to touch about the existence of external objects than to convince a stubborn solipist. In the eyes of clear-eyed people, although they are confident, determined, and commendable, they are only doing pointless groping in the dark.
But what kind of treatment would the Enlightened be in a world of blindness? Diderot said:
"If a man whose eyes are only bright for a day or two finds himself entangled in a blind people, he should make up his mind not to say a word, or to be seen as a madman."
Insisting on the truth in the Dark Ages is not an easy task.
Enlightenment thinkers
<h1>The moral concept of the congenitally blind</h1>
We used to think that some morality was a matter of course, a universal "heavenly principle." For the blind, however, they do not understand the meaning of certain "universally agreed" moral laws.
Many things we "can look at from a distance and cannot be blasphemed", but for the blind man, it is difficult for him to understand why the eyes can see things, but the hands can not touch - the eyes are like sticks, are not they all knocking things?
Congenital blind people have closed communication channels, it is difficult to contact society and understand the situation of others, and they are often "out of sight, pure in heart", so they appear to be more "indifferent" and even lack of sympathy. They understood the visual faculties that the embankment himself lacked, so they had an incredible aversion to theft, because it was easy for someone to steal his things without being detected. For them, not stealing is probably the greatest virtue.
In the history of philosophy, isn't the idea of gifts just like a blind man? They are obsessed with understanding as blind people are obsessed with touch. Blind people can't open their eyes, so they have to imagine the world on top of vague touch; gifted conceptualists put aside experience and let understanding race in the brain.
A discerning man lives among the blind, and all he has to do is be bold in his doubts and not to trust the ready-made stories made up by the blind. Instead, it is to see with your own eyes, to think independently with your own head, and to practice with your own body. In repeated practice, we have found a correct path in order to go in the direction of light.
Thus, Diderot said, "The first step toward philosophy is doubt!" ”