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.

Color Primitivism and Neo-pragmatism

This chapter responds to criticisms raised by Jonathan Cohen, on behalf of reductionists, to the Benacerraf-style argument for color primitivism offered in Chapter One. The response stresses the fact that the argument for primitivism is perfectly consistent with the idea that some ostensively taught terms—terms for natural kinds, for example—refer to properties that have hidden essences that are the business of empirical science to determine. In this way, the Benacerraf-style argument is perfectly consistent with the idea that water is identical to H2O. The chapter also presents in much more detail the neo-pragmatism on which the book relies throughout. Rather than making the a priori assumption that descriptive language must function by making use of words that “latch on” via a substantive relation of reference to objects and properties out there in the world, the neo-pragmatist takes a more empirical view of language that reflects a deeper naturalism.

Primitive Colors

This book is both an account of the nature of color and color perception, and an exercise in neo-pragmatist theorizing. Neo-pragmatism rejects representationalism, which is the standard strategy for solving “placement problems” in philosophy. Instead, it makes use of deflationary accounts of truth and reference. In the domain of color, the result is color primitivism: a view of color according to which colors are sui generis properties of objects, irreducible to physical or dispositional properties. Objective colors are also—contrary to current dogma—insufficiently determinate in their nature to allow them to be associated with precise points in standard color spaces. Rather, standard color spaces are appropriate for the description of color appearances, which are to be understood in line with a moderate form of adverbialism. A central analogy here is between the perceptible three-dimensional shape of an object and the various ways in which that shape appears from various perspectives. The book also offers an account of color constancy, a moderated version of representationalism about visual experience, and a criticism of the thesis of the transparency of experience. Also included are detailed discussions of rival views, including those of Alex Byrne and David Hilbert, C. L. Hardin, Jonathan Cohen, Mark Kalderon, Keith Allen, and Derek Brown.