Primitive Colors: A Case Study in Neo-pragmatist Metaphysics and Philosophy of Perception

Synopsis

Joshua Gert Presents An Original Account Of Color Properties, And Of Our Perception Of Them. He Employs A General Philosophical Strategy - Neo-pragmatism - Which Challenges An Assumption Made By Virtually All Other Theories Of Color. Neo-pragmatism Rejects The Standard Representationalist Strategy For Solving In Philosophy, Which Relies On The Existence Of A Substantive Notion Of Reference And Truth. Instead, It Makes Use Of Deflationary Accounts Of Such Semantic Notions. Applied To The Domain Of Color, The Result Is A View According To Which Colors Are Primitive Properties Of Objects, Irreducible To Physical Or Dispositional Properties. In This Way They Are More Like Numbers, And Less Like Natural Kinds Such As Water Or Gold. 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. A Given Color Can Present Different Veridical Appearances In Different Viewing Circumstances, And To Different Normal Viewers. It Is These Appearances, Which Are To Be Understood In An Adverbial Way, That Can Be Located In Standard Color Spaces. In Explaining The Distinction Between Objective Color And Color Appearance, A Central Analogy To Which Gert Appeals Is That Between The Perceptible Three-dimensional Shape Of An Object, And The Various Ways In Which That Shape Appears From Various Perspectives. 'primitive Colors' 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. An Unmysterious Color Primitivism -- Color Primitivism And Neo-pragmatism -- A Realistic Color Realism -- A Hybrid View -- Color Constancy -- Rival Views: Endowing Objects With Many Colors -- Friendlier Rivals: Making Color Experience More Complex -- Representationalism And The Transparency Of Experience. Joshua Gert. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 227-232) And Index.