Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T02:20:25.540Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, K. 2007. ‘The Mind-Independence of Colour.’ European Journal of Philosophy 15 (2007) 137–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, K. 2010. ‘In Defence of Natural Daylight.’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 91 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anscombe, G.E.M. 1965. ‘The Intentionality of Sensation.’ In Butler, R. ed. Analytical Philosophy: Second Series. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Broackes, J. 1992. ‘The Autonomy of Colour.’ Reprinted in Readings on Color, Byrne, A. and D., Hilbert eds. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1997.Google Scholar
Evans, G. 1980. ‘Things Without the Mind.’ Reprinted in Collected Papers. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1985.Google Scholar
Hurvich, L. 1981. Color Vision. Massachusetts: Sinauer.Google Scholar
Johnston, M. 1992. ‘How to Speak of the Colors.’ Reprinted in Readings on Color, Byrne, A. and Hilbert, D. eds. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1997.Google Scholar
Kalderon, M. Forthcoming. ‘Metamerism, Constancy, and Knowing Which.’ Mind.Google Scholar
Kalderon, M. Forthcoming.. ‘Color and the Problem of Perceptual Presence.’ Ms.Google Scholar
Mackie, J.L. 1976. Problems from Locke. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, M.G.F. 2007. ‘The Problem of Other Minds.’ Lecture delivered as part of the Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture Series, 2006-7.Google Scholar
Noë, A. 2004. Action in Perception. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
O'Shaughnessy, B. 2003. Consciousness and the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peacocke, C. 1983. Sense and Content. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Pettit, P. 2003. ‘Looks as Powers.’ Philosophical Issues 13 (2003) 221–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryle, G. 1949. The Concept of Mind. Penguin Books: Harmondsworth.Google Scholar
Schellenberg, S. 2007. ‘Action and Self-Location in Perception.’ Mind 116 (2007) 603–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schellenberg, S. 2008. ‘The Situation-Dependency of Perception.’ Journal of Philosophy 105 (2008) 55–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sellars, W. 1956. Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. Harvard: Harvard University Press 1997.Google Scholar
Shoemaker, S. 2006. ‘On the Ways Things Appear.’ In Perceptual Experience, Gendler, T.S. and Hawthorne, J. eds. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Siewert, C. 2006. ‘Is the Appearance of Shape Protean?’ Psyche 12 (2006).Google Scholar
Strawson, P.F. 1966. The Bound of Sense. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Strawson, P.F. 1979. ‘Perception and its Objects.’ In Perception and Identity, MacDonald, G.F. ed. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. 1995. Colour Vision. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar