The purpose of this thesis is to defend what is known as the primary quality view of color. I then outline the primary rival to the primary quality view, the secondary quality view, and show how dispositionalists have argued that this view best meets our core beliefs. The purpose of this thesis is to defend what is known as the primary quality view of color.
The primary quality view is therefore an objectivist viewpoint and philosophers who hold this view identify colors with physical properties of the world. I will then set up an account of the primary quality view of color and show why this view does not suffer from the same problems of causality as the secondary quality view.
Section 1.1
Each particular color shade has a unique place in the web of color relationships (relationships of similarity, difference and exclusion). Simply on the basis of visual perception, we can be justified in believing that certain things are certain colors (provided you take the viewing conditions as standard and consider yourself a normal perceiver). Thus, when one has a canary-yellow color experience when looking at a canary, one can legitimately claim that this canary is yellow, based solely on the color experience (experiential information) as well as basic beliefs about the typical causes of visual experience that shape the usual perception.
Paradigms and explanations appeal to our concept of color as external and real, and thus as objective properties of objects that typically cause color experience. On the other hand, Unity, Perceptual Availability and Revelation appeal to our concept of color as it is presented phenomenologically, and thus as subjective properties of color experience2. Johnston argues that a coherent image of color can preserve the most.
Dispositionaiism
By referring to standard perceivers, dispositionalists then avoid criticism of (imaginary) possible cases of reversed color perception, as well as the more common cases of color-blind individuals (these are non-standard perceivers). The secondary quality theories of color thus (roughly) assert that the colors of objects are dispositions (Locke labeled them 'powers') of the surfaces of those objects to produce certain perceptions/experiences (Locke labeled them 'ideas') of color in standard viewers under standard viewing conditions (standard conditions are those conditions under which we normally observe objects, thus avoiding color problems when viewed in the dark or through colored glasses, etc.). Disposition is then used to unify these separate aspects (to a greater or lesser extent): the physical properties of objects that are colored play a causal role (they reflect different wavelengths of light) in such and such circumstances, which stimulates the physical mechanisms of perception (photosensitive pigments, which are found in rods and cones, which then have a causal effect on the post-receptor channels) of such and such perceivers, causing these perceivers to have such and such experiences (via brain stimulation from the perceptual mechanisms) of color (red, green, purple, etc. ).
He argues that this fails in the sense that the corresponding dispositional conditional – if that object were in such and such circumstances, it would cause such and such a response in such and such a subject – is too simple, because it ignores the effects of extrinsic ignores features on the subject. the object that contains the . Therefore, an object has intrinsic properties, which are the constitutive basis of its tendency to produce a mental response in such and such a subject under such and such conditions.
Prime Intuition
10hnston argues that when it comes to explanation, if you look at what defenders of the primary quality account actually claim, you see that the primary and secondary quality accounts are equally fundamental. What the primary quality theorist must therefore say is that canary yellow is a disjunctive property consisting of the disjuncts PI, P2, as well as all the other various physical properties that cause the experience of canary yellow. He claims that the nature of certain dispositions (he gives the example of the disposition of an apricot to evoke a feeling/response of nausea in him) can be revealed through the manifestation of this disposition, since "it is plausible to think , that if one has an experience of the kind in question, and takes that experience to be a manifestation of the disposition in question, one thereby knows the complete inherent character of the property which is the disposition".
He further argues that although one can take the manifestation of a disposition to reveal the nature of the disposition to look a certain way (if the subject accepts the experience as the manifestation of a disposition), steady colors not revealed as nature in color. experience, therefore experience cannot reveal the intrinsic nature 'completely/entirely'. Johnston argues that this is what one is forced to do by accepting the primary quality account.
Summing up
Metamers
It is then a matter of non-arbitrary convention in which of the two situations we see the official color of each object. Of course, as with shape perception, it must be said that Cl was also mistaken about the color of the objects (or at least the color of one of the objects, since with tamers it is often one of the objects). perceived colors remain unchanged while others change), whereas in C2, where conditions were better for distinguishing between two colors, it was possible to see that the two were actually different. 34; the current color of the rotating disc is yellow and if the viewer claims it is purple, we will speak of a color illusion and suspect some abnormality in the person's visual system.
Once again there is the bias to see humanity (or most of humanity-as-it-is-now) as the center of the universe. Of course, common sense dictates that as in the case of deuteranope and green, the trichromat must say that some things are UV, although they cannot have an experience of the color UV. Therefore, the difference between the primary and secondary quality positions is whether the red property of the object that causes the perception of red is: 1.
The dispositionalist would say, as with colors, that the glass has a second-order dispositional property of fragility (which has a first-order constituent property) that is responsible for the glass breaking when struck. It is therefore useful to preview this last setup, to see if the same holds true. Here again it is not the disposition that causes the manifestation, but rather the underlying causal basis.
However, one need not then extend this distribution to every disjunct of the disjunctive property. A property F is not causally effective in producing an effect e if all three of the following subconditions are met: i) there is a family of distinct properties G],. It is therefore the disjunctive properties that do all the causal work and are therefore the most basic (although sufficient) explanations for the color of objects.
Color experiences represent these colors in that they are caused by the instantiation of the microphysical properties. Along the lines of the arguments from perception in general (above) Hilbert speaks of the fallacy of total information, arguing: "Vision provides partial information about objects, not only in the sense that there are properties that are not visually accessible , but also in the sense that even properties that are visually accessible cannot be completely determined by any given visual perception" (Hilbert: 1987: 37). Color experiences (as argued in section 3) represent the colors in that they are caused by the instantiation of the microphysical properties.
The opponents of the primary quality view would then maintain that in the possible world in which lemons look blue, we would call them blue, and that (as our intuition shows) they would be blue even though they have the same physical property P (which the primary quality theorist identifies as color) as the lemons in the real world.
Conclusion
By maintaining that color experience, although separate from color, falls under our overarching conceptual color scheme, the primary quality view is able to meet our demands of Unity, Perceptual Availability, and Revelation. Since color experience is typically caused by color properties, an observer is justified in having such and such a color experience, as well as certain background beliefs about causation and perception in general, in believing that he/she has such and such a see color , but as with the rest of perception, allow for some error that may arise due to limitations in that person's perceptual system (having only a trichromatic system, or only a dichromatic system, or even only a tetrachromatic system ). As we give colors color names through color experience, it is through the experienced similarities and difference ratios that we group color shades under certain color names and not under others.
As has been argued, we have no reason to accept Revelation in the strong sense (as revealing by visual perception alone all the intrinsic characteristic of color), and many reasons to reject it. However, revelation can be maintained as part of our overarching conceptual scheme as long as it is limited to color experience where what is revealed by color experience is only the phenomenological hue, saturation and. The primary quality theorists, when confronted with a ruby, are then able to say based on their color experience and background beliefs that that ruby is red because it is a microphysical.
They can further say that a red ruby is similar to a red strawberry, while it looks different from a green emerald, and that these relations of similarity and difference are revealed in color experience. Due to limitations in the human visual system, the primary quality theorist must accept that their perception is correctable. However, when viewed in the context of perception more generally, this lends common sense support to the primary quality view.
The primary quality theorist must accept that when he uses color terms in everyday activities, they are (for pragmatic reasons) based on anthropocentric chauvinism, since color terms were created by humans and used to identify colors. However, since our color concepts outpace our experience of color, the primary quality theorist can argue that metaphysically, colors outpace our experience of them, and that if we were better color discriminators, then we would be able to identify a greater range of colors. colors in the world. Since the primary quality view succeeds – where both subjectivism and dispositionalism have failed – in satisfying our fundamental beliefs about colors and fitting them into our overarching (perceptual) conceptual scheme, it is clear that primary qualities must be accorded the ontological status of 'colour'.
Bibliography
