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Colours

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

J. J. C. Smart
J. J. C. Smart
Affiliation:
University of Adelaide, Australia.
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Extract

In this paper I wish first of all to argue against two possible views about colour qualities, which I shall label the Objectivist and Subjectivist views respectively. I find these views to be prevalent among philosophers of my acquaintance, though sometimes they are hidden by a veneer of post-Wittgensteinian sophistication. Part of my argument will depend on modern scientific theories of colour vision. In the second part of the paper I shall argue for a different view of my own.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 36 , Issue 137 , April 1961 , pp. 128 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1961

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References

page 128 note 1 See the illuminating exegesis of Locke by Reginald Jackson in his article “Locke's Distinction between Primary and Secondary Qualities,” Mind, Vol. 38, 1929. pp. 56–76.

page 129 note 1 As we shall see later, the remarks in parentheses in this sentence will have to be taken with a good deal of caution, especially if the reader has a one-one correspondence in mind.

page 129 note 2 Some Objectivists might hold that, by some sort of intuition, we can be directly confronted with the inherent qualities of the object. As we shall see, this type of view is scientifically implausible.

page 130 note 1 See footnote 3.

page 131 note 1 Feigl, H., “The ‘Mental’ and the ‘Physical’”, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 2, 1958, pp.370–497, especially pp. 382 and 428.Google Scholar

page 131 note 2 In my paper “Sensations and Brain Processes”, Philosophical Review, Vol. 68, pp. 141–56, especially p. 143.

page 132 note 1 Published by Philips Industries.Eindhoven, Netherlands, First Edition, 1949.

page 132 note 2 Land, E. H., “Experiments in Colour Vision”, Scientific American, Vol.200, No. 5 (05 1959), PP. 84–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 133 note 1 See Bouma, op. cit., pp. 154–6.

page 133 note 2 Different considerations, which point towards a similar conclusion, are given on pp. 302–4 of the Earl of Halsbury's, article “Epistemology and Communication Theory”. PHILOSOPHY, Vol. 34, 1959. pp. 289–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 134 note 1 Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, §10.

page 134 note 2 Hume, Treatise, Bk. I, Part 4, Sec. 4, “Of the Modern Philosophy”.

page 134 note 3 Warnock, G. J., Berkeley, Pelican Books, London, 1953. p. 101.Google Scholar

page 135 note 1 Kneale, Cf. W., Probability and Induction, Oxford University Press, 1949, p. 94.Google Scholar “Berkeley pointed out quite correctly that the hypothetical entities of the physicists were unimaginable, but he concluded wrongly that because they were unimaginable they were inconceivable.” Also Hirst, R. J., The Problems of Perception, Allen and Unwin, 1959, p.167, near bottom.Google Scholar

page 136 note 1 P. T. Geach in his excellent and instructive section on “Abstractionism and Colour-Concepts” of his Mental Acts (pp. 33–8) points out that a man born blind can show a practical grasp of the logical grammar of colour words (p. 35), and also that he can grasp something of the aesthetic significance of colours in human life (p. 36). He points out important similarities between the blind man's and the sighted man's colour concepts, but I think that we we can go even farther than Geach does in this direction.

The question of a blind man's ability to use colour words is also raised by “B” in the dialogue on pp. 59–62 of J., HosperśIntroduction to Philosophical Analysis (Prentice-Hall, New York, 1953). The following pages should indicate how my view differs from “B's” and how it avoids the objections of “A” in the dialogue.Google Scholar

page 138 note 1 That is, if it is necessary. May be, like some animals, we can make some such discriminations anterior to learning language at all. Whether this is so or not is a question for the psychologists.

page 139 note 1 The article, “Sensations and Brain Processes”, already cited. This owes much to Place's, U. T. earlier and excellent paper, “Is Consciousness a Brain Process?” British Journal of Psychology, Vol. 47, 1956, pp. 44–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 139 note 2 What may be the same view as mine is suggested by Hebb's, D. O.Textbook of Psychology, Saunders, Philadelphia and London, 1958, p. 187, where Hebb is discussing the phi-phenomenon. Hebb says: “What does it mean when a subject reports that he sees a light move … it means, simply, that these conditions of stimulation produce, at some level in the brain, the same process that is produced by a light that does move from A to B.” I should myself, of course, be cautious about mentioning the brain in translating remarks of the “it seems to me as if …” sort, since these can be understood by those who are ignorant of the brainz's physiological function. But no doubt we should also be cautious in interpreting the word “means” in the quotation from Hebb. Hebb's further remarks in this place are instructive:he points out that though the phi-phenomenon appears to be a continuous process, the cortical process need not be, and probably is not, a continuous movement of excitation from one point to another.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 139 note 3 In the White King's case it was the word “nobody” that deceived him.

page 139 note 4 On this point see the article “Sensations and Brain Processes”, p. 150.

page 139 note 5 See footnote on page 131.

page 141 note 1 If this work is not readily obtainable see the quotations from it in Reginald Jackson 's article (cited in footnote 1 on page 128).

page 142 note 1 See Freudenthal, Hans “Towards a Cosmic Language”, Delta (Netherlands), Summer, 1958, pp. 37–48.Google Scholar