•  38
    Spraying color
    In Katharina Grosse: Atoms Inside Balloons, The Renaissance Society At the University of Chicago. pp. 240-251. 2009.
    What is color? Of course, examples of colorful objects are not hard to come by (Fig. 1 provides numerous examples), so the question itself is slightly puzzling, suggesting that some confusion needs to be cleared up or ignorance enlightened. But how could anyone (who isn’t blind or Fig. 1 Atoms Inside Balloons totally lacking in color vision) possibly be confused about what color is? After all, if we learn anything about the world merely by looking at it, it’s the colors of the things we see. How…Read more
  •  40
    The 18th century philosopher and Anglican bishop, George Berkeley, is chiefly known to posterity for advocating the radical thesis that there is no unthinking stuff in the world. According to Berkeley, bar stools, kegs, mugs and the all paraphernalia of ordinary life (plus everything else) are merely ideas and have no existence outside the mind of those seated on the stools, tapping the kegs, and drinking from the mugs. What is less well-known is that Berkeley devoted much of his energy in later…Read more
  •  111
    Colour has often been supposed to be a subjective property, a property to be analysed orretly in terms of the phenomenological aspects of human expereince. In contrast with subjectivism, an objectivist analysis of color takes color to be a property objects possess in themselves, independently of the character of human perceptual expereince. David Hilbert defends a form of objectivism that identifies color with a physical property of surfaces - their spectral reflectance. This analysis of color i…Read more
  •  78
    These volumes will serve as useful resources for anyone interested in philosophy of color perception or color science.
  •  113
    Color realism revisited
    with Alex Byrne
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (6): 791-793. 2003.
    Our reply is in four parts. The first part, R1, addresses objections to our claim that there might be “unknowable” color facts. The second part, R2, discusses the use we make of opponent process theory. The third part, R3, examines the question of whether colors are causes. The fourth part, R4, takes up some issues concerning the content of visual experience.
  •  106
    In _An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision_ George Berkeley made the claim that,.
  •  292
    Are colors secondary qualities?
    with Alex Byrne and David Hilbert
    In Lawrence Nolan (ed.), Primary and secondary qualities: the historical and ongoing debate, Oxford University Press. 2011.
    The Dangerous Book for Boys Abstract: Seventeenth and eighteenth century discussions of the senses are often thought to contain a profound truth: some perceptible properties are secondary qualities, dispositions to produce certain sorts of experiences in perceivers. In particular, colors are secondary qualities: for example, an object is green iff it is disposed to look green to standard perceivers in standard conditions. After rebutting Boghossian and Velleman’s argument that a certain kind of …Read more
  •  303
    Hardin, Tye, and Color Physicalism
    Journal of Philosophy 101 (1): 37-43. 2004.
    Larry Hardin has been the most steadfast and influential critic of physicalist theories of color over the last 20 years. In their modern form these theories originated with the work of Smart and Armstrong in the 1960s and 1970s1 and Hardin appropriately concentrated on their views in his initial critique of physicalism.2 In his most recent contribution to this project3 he attacks Michael Tye’s recent attempts to defend and extend color physicalism.4 Like Byrne and Hilbert5, Tye identifies color …Read more
  •  76
    Naturalistic theories of content and whether or not reason-giving explanations of human behavior are causal explanations have been central topics in recent philosophy of mind. Fred Dretske, in his book Explaining Behavior, attempts to construct a naturalistic theory of the contents of beliefs and desires that gives these mental states an important role in the causation of behavior. Even if Dretske is granted that the theory adequately accounts for individual behaviors the theory still faces prob…Read more
  •  57
    Unique hues
    with Alex Byrne
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 20 (2): 184-185. 1997.
    Saunders & van Brakel argue, inter alia, that there is for the claim that there are four unique hues (red, green, blue, and yellow), and that there are two corresponding opponent processes. We argue that this is quite mistaken
  •  195
    Perception and causation
    with Alex Byrne
    Journal of Philosophy 92 (6): 323-329. 1995.
  •  1003
    Color realism and color science
    with Alex Byrne
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (1): 3-21. 2003.
    The target article is an attempt to make some progress on the problem of color realism. Are objects colored? And what is the nature of the color properties? We defend the view that physical objects (for instance, tomatoes, radishes, and rubies) are colored, and that colors are physical properties, specifically types of reflectance. This is probably a minority opinion, at least among color scientists. Textbooks frequently claim that physical objects are not colored, and that the colors are "subje…Read more
  •  2
    Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (edited book)
    with John Perry
    Center for the Study of Language and Inf. 2013.
    Deeply original, inspiring to some, abhorrent to others, George Berkeley’s philosophy of immaterialism is still influential three hundred years after the publication of his most widely read book, _Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous. _Berkeley published the _Dialogues _because of the unenthusiastic reception of his _Principles of Human Knowledge _in 1710._ _He hoped the use of the_ _dialogue format would win a more favorable hearing, but unfortunately for Berkeley, the response was every…Read more
  •  201
    Groups in Mind
    Philosophy of Science 73 (5): 765-777. 2006.
    We consider the question of the manner of the internalization of the geometry and topology of physical space in the mind, both the mechanism of internalization and precisely what structures are internalized. Though we will not argue for the point here, we agree with the long tradition which holds that an understanding of this issue is crucial for addressing many metaphysical and epistemological questions concerning space
  •  606
    Color and the inverted spectrum
    In Steven Davis (ed.), Vancouver Studies in Cognitive Science, Oxford University Press. pp. 187-214. 2000.
    If you trained someone to emit a particular sound at the sight of something red, another at the sight of something yellow, and so on for other colors, still he would not yet be describing objects by their colors. Though he might be a help to us in giving a description. A description is a representation of a distribution in a space (in that of time, for instance).
  •  88
    Readings on Color I: The Philosophy of Color (edited book)
    with Alex Byrne
    MIT Press. 1997.
    Edward Wilson Averill By the phrase 'anthropocentric account of color' I mean an account of color that makes an assumption of the following form: two ...
  •  57
    Glossary of color science
    with Alex Byrne
    In A. Byrne & D. R. Hilbert (eds.), Readings on Color, Volume 2: The Science of Color, Mit Press. 1997.
    Anomaloscope An instrument used for detecting anomalies of color vision. The test subject adjusts the ratio of two monochromatic lights to form a match with a third monochromatic light. The most common form of this procedure involves a Rayleigh match: a match between a mixture of monochromatic green and red lights, and a monochromatic yellow light. Normal subjects will choose a matching ratio of red to green light that falls within a fairly narrow range of values. Subjects with anomalous color v…Read more
  •  359
    What is color vision?
    Philosophical Studies 68 (3): 351-70. 1992.
    There are serious reasons for accepting each of these propositions individually but there are apparently insurmountable difficulties with accepting all three of them simultaneously if we assume that color is a single property. 1) and 2) together seem to imply that there is some property which all organisms with color vision can see and 3) seems to imply that there can be no such property. If these implications really are valid then one or more of these propositions will have to be rejected in sp…Read more
  •  36
    Is Seeing Believing?
    PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1994. 1994.
    One of the traditional problems of philosophy is the nature of the connection between perceptual experience and empirical knowledge. That there is an intimate connection between the two is rarely doubted. Three case studies of visual deficits due to brain damage are used to motivate the claim that perceptual experience is neither necessary nor sufficient for perceptual knowledge. Acceptance of this claim leaves a mystery as to the epistemic role, if any, of perceptual experience. It is argued th…Read more
  •  59
    Comments on anthropomorphism
    Philosophical Studies 69 (2-3): 123-127. 1993.