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Being Coloured and Looking Coloured

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Keith Allen
Keith Allen*
Affiliation:
University of York, Heslington, York, UKYO10 5DD
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Extract

Intuitively, there is an intimate connection between being coloured and looking coloured. As Strawson memorably remarked, it is natural to assume that ‘colours are visibilia or they are nothing’ (1979, 109). But what exactly is the nature of this relationship?

A traditionally popular view of the relationship between being coloured and looking coloured starts from the common place that the character of our perceptual experience changes as the conditions in which an object is perceived vary. For instance, our experience changes when we view an object under different illuminants, as when we move from artificial illumination indoors to natural daylight outside. It changes under one and the same illuminant, depending on whether the object is directly or indirectly illuminated. And it varies independently of this, as the background against which the object is perceived varies. Placing a lot of weight on the idea that objects look or appear different as the perceptual conditions vary, proponents of this approach suggest that we can understand what it is for something to be coloured in terms of what it is for something to look coloured in specific perceptual conditions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , December 2009 , pp. 647 - 670
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2009

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