Synopses & Reviews
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.
Synopsis
Blindness and Enlightenment presents a reading and translation of Diderots Letter on the Blind for Use by the Sighted (the first translation into English since the eighteenth-century). Diderot was the founder and editor of the Encyclopdie, a novelist, a philosopher and an active proponent of democratic ideals. His Letter on the Blind is essential reading for anyone interested in Enlightenment philosophy or eighteenth-century literature. By discussing the blind, Diderot undercuts a central assumption of the Enlightenment, present in the very term itself in its reference to light, namely that moral and philosophical insight was dependent on seeing.
Synopsis
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.
Table of Contents
List of Figures appearing in the EssayAcknowledgements Note on the References Prologue, or Operation EnlightenmentIntroduction: Optics and TacticsOne: Reading is Believing?Two: The Blind Leading the Blind Leading the Blind Leading the Blind Leading the Blind ...Three: Point of View and Point de VueFour: Groping Around in the LightFive: A Supplement to Saunderson's MemoirsSix: Dis/Solving Molyneux's ProblemConclusion, or Two Hours Later ...BibliographyIndexAppendicesI. Denis Diderot, The Letter on the Blind for the Use of Those Who Can See (1749)Note on the TranslationTranslationII. François de La Mothe Le Vayer, ‘Of a Man-Born-Blind' (1653)Note on the TranslationTranslation