Seeing with the hands: blindness, vision, and touch after Descartes, by Mark Paterson, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2016, 288 pp., £19.99 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-47-440532-4 By Ben Simmons http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09687599.2016.1249637
Seeing with the Hands is Mark Paterson’s latest offering in a trilogy of books exploring the role of touch. As the title suggests, the topic of touch is approached in relation to Early Modern articulations of vision and blindness. Through exposition of philosophical and historical texts on touch, sight, and blindness, Paterson documents the emergence of ‘visionist’ culture in Europe over the last 350 years. This gives way to a convincing discussion of how such thinking influenced psychological investigation, technological invention, and contemporary attitudes towards the blind by the sighted, what Paterson refers to as an ongoing ‘fascination with what the blind “see”’ (3). Paterson’s journey into Early Modern philosophy begins with Descartes in Chapter One. The description of Descartes’ thought experiments regarding the experiences of a hypothetical blind man using a cane serves to illustrate early interests in intermodal transfer; that is, with whether the qualities of sight can be translated into qualities of touch. Chapter Two extends discussion about cross-modal perception as well as the refinement of philosophical inquiry into blindness, particularly through the work of Molyneux. Whilst Descartes introduces the concept of sensory analogy, it was Molyneux who delved deep into theorizing the experience of blindness and sight. He portrayed the hypothetical case of a man born blind who has extensive experience of tactical interactions with objects. In the hypothetical case, the blind man has his vision restored. Molyneux essentially asks: could a blind man who has felt spheres and cubes identify the objects through sight if his vision was suddenly restored? Chapter Three reviews eighteenth-century surgical experiments to restore sight such as the removal of cataracts. Surgery of this nature became a public performance leading to a surge of interest in blindness and vision. It also held promise for answering Molyneux’s question: removal of cataracts in those born blind suggested that spatial perception (e.g. depth and perspective) requires the visual system to work with other senses and movement. In Chapter Four Paterson explores the work of Voltaire and Buffon and the rise of sensationalist philosophy. However, philosophical thought experiments still persist, and it is not until Chapter Five that we begin to see philosophers such as Diderot exploring the experiences of the visually impaired by seeking their first personal accounts. This work gleaned insights into the possibility of tactile reading and communication through touch. Chapter Six explores the realization of this theme by tracing the emergence of haptic reading systems such as Braille. Chapter Seven explores modal substitution in our technological age, beginning with Bach-y-Rita’s early Tactical–Visual Sensory Substitution which transcodes optical information from a camera to the surface of the skin. In the final chapter Paterson moves away from philosophy, history, and technology to contemporary accounts of the lived experience of vision, blindness, and the process of losing sight. Descriptions of Early Modern philosophy, surgical experimentation, and technological advancement provide an important account of the regard and treatment of the visually impaired by the sighted. However, the chapters that are heavy in historical dates and technological description can feel somehow dry and impersonal compared with the final chapter. The discussion of literature, poetry, and biographies elevates the book to a more intimate space, rich in poetic language and concepts which challenge the reader’s presumptions about the experiences of blindness. Although sensitively presented, the first person accounts are bite-sized and leave the reader with a sense that the views of the blind are underrepresented in the book. Nevertheless, the final chapter is perhaps the most reflective and critical, and raises the phenomenological issue of whether the experience of the blind can be authentically communicated within the language of the sighted. Seeing with the Hands is an accessible book suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate reading lists. Despite brimming with philosophical references from competing schools of thought, the book is subtly Foucauldian in its approach to tracing the history of ideas related to blindness. It cogently portrays the origins of such concepts and documents how they have influenced modern-day thinking about blindness as well as technological invention. Whilst Paterson’s monograph is not a typical textbook in the explicitly politicized and radical field of disability studies, it does offer pause for thought by vividly portraying the fascination that the sighted have with the blind. Furthermore, Seeing with the Hands indirectly presents a history of research on blindness and the positioning of the visually impaired in the research process. For example, early chapters demonstrate a disconnect between philosophy (particularly rationalism) and people with visual impairment: blindness is fetishized and theorized via thought experiments, but blind people themselves are never considered to be authorities of their own experience and hence rarely consulted. In the middle of the book (and the middle of the eighteenth century) we see the emergence of medical experiments to cure the blind (e.g. cataract removal) and a desire by philosophers (such as Diderot) to seek out blind people and inquire about the nature of their experience. Whilst it may be a stretch to label these approaches ‘positivism’ and ‘interpretivism’, the seeds of these research traditions are certainly being sowed. The final chapter of Seeing with the Hands presents contemporary literature from blind authors but makes no attempt to trace an emancipatory research model. Although Paterson never aims to write a book about research per se, one cannot help but feel that engagement with contemporary studies in social science would have elevated the standing of this book in disability studies and led to a bolder conclusion. Ben Simmons Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK -- Avinash Shahi Doctoral student at Centre for Law and Governance JNU Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list..
