Molyneux’s question and multisensory integration

Molyneux’s question is, very roughly, that of whether a blind person's prior acquaintance with shape properties by touch alone would suffice for visually identifying those properties, if her sight were restored. The question is at least in part an empirical one, and various scientific attempts have been made to answer it not only for sight and haptic touch but also for various other sensory modalities. This paper is not aimed at answering Molyneux’s original or related questions. Rather, our aim here is to bring his question to bear on the nature of multisensory integration. In particular, we argue that variants on Molyneux's question spell trouble for a dominant view of multisensory integration and develop an alternative account that is immune to these problems. Finally, we show that the answer to Molyneux’s original question has interesting consequences for whether our alternative account is true of all cases of multisensory experience.