An Unmysterious Color Primitivism
This chapter argues for a primitivist view of color: a view according to which colors are primitive properties—not reducible to such things as sets of spectral reflectances, disjunctions of microphysical surface properties, or dispositions to cause experiences. The argument is modeled on Paul Benacerraf’s well-known argument against reductive accounts of the integers. It begins by pointing out that there are many equally good candidates to count as reduction bases for the colors, and no way to choose between them. It then notes that all of these candidates have the drawback of endowing colors with properties that we should not think colors actually have. Finally, it shows that there is an explanation available, in terms of a use theory of the meaning of color terms, that does not reduce them to anything else.