Abstract
Studies show that there are widespread intrasubjective and intersubjective color variations among normal perceivers. These variations have serious ramifications in the debate about the nature and ontology of color. It is typical to think of the debate about color as a dispute between objectivists and subjectivists. Objectivists hold that colors are perceiver-independent physical properties of objects while subjectivists hold that they are either projections onto external objects or dispositions objects have to look colored. I argue that individual color variations present difficulties, albeit not the same kind, for both objectivism and subjectivism. Lastly, I propose an alternative account that handles such variations nicely.
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Notes
Differences with respect to color vision extend to non-human species. Pigeons, for example, have four photoreceptors -they are tetrachromats -and can see ultraviolet colors, which are not visible by humans. This presents an additional problem for the objectivist, which is beyond the scope of this paper. For discussion on this topic see Matthen (1999) and Thompson (1995).
Hilbert and Byrne (2007) capitalize ‘Normal’ to distinguish it from the statistical sense. I will use their convention since I will be discussing this distinction in more detail in “Color Objectivism” section.
The same is true of intrasubjective color variations. However, since most of the current discussion pertains to intersubjective color variations, intrasubjective variations will not be considered here.
See also Malkoc et al. (2005).
Unique green, for example, is neither bluish nor yellowish.
Objectivists disagree about which physical properties should be identified with the colors. For example, Hilbert and Byrne (2003) argue that colors (for opaque objects) are productances since they produce (i.e., reflect, emit, or transmit) a specific proportion of incident light; McLaughlin (2003) argues that colors are physical bases of dispositions; and Armstrong (1968) argues that colors are wavelengths of light that objects emit or reflect.
Note that the individual variability problem can also be posed as a problem for representationalism (or intentionalism) about the phenomenal content of experience.
As we will see in “Accept Color Pluralism” section, Kalderon denies this assumption.
These perceivers have normal vision in the sense that they have passed every test that is used to detect color vision deficiencies. Hilbert and Byrne, however, argue that the objectivist can solve the problem by taking color vision to be normal in the teleological sense. I address their proposal in “Employ a Teleological Notion of ‘Normal’ Perceiver” section.
See Hardin (1988).
I am indebted to an anonymous referee for this suggestion and to Christopher Buford for discussion.
There is a fourth condition, namely, if p were the case, then S would believe that p. However, since it usually goes unmentioned, I will not include it here. See Philosophical Explanations, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1981.
Even if there is some way out of this, there seems to be a further worry. Namely, appealing to externalism about knowledge might not be sufficient to establish that there is higher-order knowledge about color facts. In which case, not only we cannot know that S knows that x is red, but also S cannot know that S knows that x is red. Some argue that some sort of internalist account of knowledge is necessary for higher-order knowledge. If this is right, appeals to externalism will be insufficient to solve the problem.
Hilbert and Byrne (2007), footnote 2.
Kathleen Akins (1996) coined this the ‘detectionist thesis’ of color vision.
Even if the function of the visual system were to track color properties, objectivists would be compelled to adopt an anthropocentric view of color, which excludes non-human species, since color experiences across species lack unity. This is, in fact, what many do. For a defense of anthropocentric objectivism see Hilbert (1987). For arguments against color anthropocentrism see Matthen (1999). The account I defend in “Color Fictionalism to the Rescue” section, by comparison, is inclusive of other species.
Quoted from Peter Gouras’ “Color Vision” online paper (http://www.webvision.med.utah.edu/Color.html) “Color and Form”. See also Gouras and Zrenner (1981).
As an anonymous referee noted, objectivists often appeal to color constancy to motivate the claim that colors are illumination-independent properties that our visual system tracks. Jonathan Cohen argues against two prevailing views of color constancy and defends a third, which is consistent with colors being relational properties (see “Colour Constancy as Counterfactual” in the Australasia Journal of Philosophy vol. 86, issue 1, 2008, pp. 61–92). If he is right, objectivists cannot use color constancy to motivate the claim that colors are illumination-independent properties. But even if Cohen is wrong, it is not clear, at least to me, how color constancy is supposed to provide a solution to the individual variability problem. Although it might motivate the thesis that colors are objective properties, it seems extraneous to discussions regarding the veridicality of color experience. Discussions about the veridicality of color experience often feature the notion of ‘normal’ perceivers.
Note that objectivists like Hilbert and Byrne would most likely not accept Kalderon’s solution to the problem.
See Hardin (1988) and “Employ a Teleological Notion of ‘Normal’ Perceiver” section. Perhaps there are other examples that could be used to support Kalderon’s argument. The point is that providing an adequate solution to the individual variability problem requires establishing that at least some of our typical color experiences are illusory. I have shown that the permissive nature of color pluralism is a hindrance to that end. For a more recent discussion on illusions, see also Kalderon’s “Color Illusion” forthcoming in Noûs.
Whether they are right in saying that phenomenal color can be described in purely neurophysiological terms is controversial. Thompson (1995) argues they cannot. This issue will be ignored here since it is not pertinent to my argument.
This form of eliminativism is about the ontology of colors. Projectivists deny that ordinary color concepts pick out (or are formed by) color properties of objects while dispositionalists argue that we should not deny that colors are properties of objects. Instead they argue that we should revise our ordinary color conception and say that colors exist but they are perceiver-dependent properties of objects.
In this section the lower case ‘normal’ will be inclusive of the statistical and the teleological sense unless it is otherwise indicated.
Cohen maintains that his account is a version of objectivism. However, given my classification, it falls under the rubric ‘subjectivism.’
Perhaps, McGilvray could say that in such cases none of the experiences are incorrect. However, if we were to count all experiences that result from intersubjective variations as correct, then specifying correctness conditions would be, to quote Clark, an “empty gesture.”
Clark argument can be also applied to McGilvray’s theory since it too requires us to specify a causal relation between reflectance properties and color experiences.
McGilvray, 119–120, emphasis added.
It might be argued that the problem arises because I am assuming that color statements express Russelian propositions. Projectivists can thus avoid the problem by adhering to adverbialism (although Clark (2000) offers a rather persuasive argument against it). However, it seems to me that the problem would arise regardless of the linguistic theory one accepts since it seems true that if perceptual objects are intentional, they cannot be accessible to others. Locke 1975, Book II, Ch. VIII.
Maund (1995) argues that Locke’s view is more complex since it requires that we distinguish between color as the property of physical bodies and color as a property of experience.
See, for example, Boghossian and Velleman (1989).
Jackson (2007), for example, argues that we see, and think of, color as a property of things in the world to which we are responding. When something looks blue to us, “we are in a state that is putatively a causal response” to the object’s redness” (170). See also Jackson’s “The Primary Quality View of Colour”, Philosophical Perspectives, 10, 1669 (pp. 199–219).
The term ‘normal’ here is meant to be inclusive of the statistical and the teleological sense.
See Boghossian and Velleman (1989).
Harvey is responding to an objection made by Boghossian and Velleman (1989), p. 103, who offer such an example and argue that dispositionalism does not provide the correct answer to the question “What color is the object?”
Harvey (2000) p. 142, emphasis added.
See Hardin (1998).
Boghossian and Velleman (1989) also tie talk about normal perceivers and conditions of viewing to general agreement about determinable colors.
See Hardin (1998). Note that Hardin used ‘normal’ in the statistical sense, but the argument can also apply to the teleological sense.
I defend this account in ‘Colour Fictionalism’ forthcoming in Rivista Di Estetica.
Prescriptive fictionalism is distinct from descriptive fictionalism, which says that the target discourse (in this case, color discourse) is already treated as a fiction. Descriptive fictionalists maintain that although ordinary people seem to be expressing propositions that commit them to the existence of color properties when they employ color discourse, in actuality, they engage in some kind of pretense. For example, when ordinary people utter statements ascribing colors to objects such as “Lemons are yellow,” they express propositions of the form “In F, P.”
As Joyce (2001) notes, the act of make-believe differs from self-deception. When one utters a proposition p as an act of make-believe, one knows that p is false but pretends that it is true.
Geach argues that a “thought may have just the same content whether you assent to its truth or not; a proposition may occur in discourse now asserted, now unasserted, and yet be recognizably the same proposition.” The difference is the force with which such propositions are uttered. See “Assertion”, Philosophical Review, 74: 4: p. 449, 1965.
See also Nolan et al. (2005).
I initially proposed that the base discourse consist of the opponent-process theory, but this approach did not yield correctness conditions. I defend this version in detail in Gatzia (2007) and Fictional Colors (forthcoming).
As I have argued, this sort of variability presents difficulties for objectivism, and subjectivism.
Johnson and Wright argue that colors can be associated with high-level statistical constructs. However, they regard their “theory as ‘scientific’ rather than ‘philosophical’ because the theory is not designed to give the metaphysical essence of colors, or to provide a conceptual analysis of color, or to accomplish many of the other tasks that have been assigned to traditional philosophical theories of color.” They explain that “rather than telling us what colors are, the theory expresses what science tells us about colors [since] at present we are not entitled to identify colors with some particular physical property, or any other relatively basic type of property. The best we can do is associate colors with a certain set of statistical regularities” (159). My account, by contrast, is philosophical since it aims to preserve color discourse, partly because it is useful, in the absence of colors. It allows us to link the scientific theory of color perception, which is literally true, with the fiction via bridge principles.
See Karen Larwin’s “Latent Variable Scores From SEM Analysis” presented at the American Evaluation Association Annual Conference, November 14, 2009, Orlando Florida.
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An earlier version of this paper was presented at the American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division, 2008. I thank the panel and Peter Ross for commentary. I am also grateful to Barry Maund, C. L. Hardin, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on later versions of the paper.
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Gatzia, D.E. The Individual Variability Problem. Philosophia 38, 533–554 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-009-9234-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-009-9234-0