Conceptual shifts in early modern philosophical conceptions of the deaf suggest a salient case study in the social construction of deafness. Ancient models which formed the starting point of early modern philosophical inquiry into deafness assumed that the inability to speak was intrinsically connected with an inability to hear, a conjunction expressed by the conventional usage “deaf and dumb.” Rejecting the ancient exempla, Leibniz speculated that a society comprised entirely of congenitally deaf people could in fact reach a significant level of scientific accomplishment, postulating further that the use of gestural signs in lieu of conventional spoken language could provide wide-ranging benefits, allowing a vividness and precision inconceivable within the range of speech alone. Methodologically, Kuhn’s model of scientific theory-change suggests an analogous framework, allowing for the treatment of such conceptual development within the Kuhnian apparatus of paradigm shifts. This paper argues that Leibniz’s theory of deafness represented a decisive paradigm shift from Greek models that posited an essential relationship between deafness and dumbness, a view responsible for historically othering portrayals of the deaf as congenitally less intelligent, incapable of speech, and physically impaired. In order to establish that sign language was an effective form of language, and as a corollary that deaf people were equally capable in all relevant cognitive capacities, Leibniz employed a novel theoretical account of language to replace the earlier reigning paradigm and the presumed otherness of the deaf entailed by it.

Born in Daegu, South Korea, Shauna Kwag is an independent scholar of the history of science and deaf studies. She is currently at work on a study of early modern methodologies around language, speech, and deafness.

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