•  936
    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
  •  931
    The science of color and color vision
    with Alex Byrne
    In Fiona Macpherson & Derek Brown (eds.), Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Colour, Routledge. 2021.
    A survey of color science and color vision.
  •  769
    Color relationalism and relativism
    with Alex Byrne
    Topics in Cognitive Science 9 (1): 172-192. 2017.
    This paper critically examines color relationalism and color relativism, two theories of color that are allegedly supported by variation in normal human color vision. We mostly discuss color relationalism, defended at length in Jonathan Cohen's The Red and the Real, and argue that the theory has insuperable problems.
  •  722
    How do things look to the color-blind?
    with Alex Byrne
    In Jonathan Cohen & Mohan Matthen (eds.), Color Ontology and Color Science, Mit Press. pp. 259. 2010.
    Color-vision defects constitute a spectrum of disorders with varying degrees and types of departure from normal human color vision. One form of color-vision defect is dichromacy; by mixing together only two lights, the dichromat can match any light, unlike normal trichromatic humans, who need to mix three. In a philosophical context, our titular question may be taken in two ways. First, it can be taken at face value as a question about visible properties of external objects, and second, it may b…Read more
  •  677
    Objectivist reductionism
    with Alex Byrne
    In Fiona Macpherson & Derek Brown (eds.), Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Colour, Routledge. 2021.
    A survey of arguments for and against the view that colors are physical properties.
  •  605
    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).
  •  470
    Color Primitivism
    with Alex Byrne
    Erkenntnis 66 (1-2). 2006.
    The typical kind of color realism is reductive: the color properties are identified with properties specified in other terms (as ways of altering light, for instance). If no reductive analysis is available — if the colors are primitive sui generis properties — this is often taken to be a convincing argument for eliminativism. That is, realist primitivism is usually thought to be untenable. The realist preference for reductive theories of color over the last few decades is particularly striking i…Read more
  •  430
    Truest blue
    with A. Byrne
    Analysis 67 (1): 87-92. 2007.
    1. The “puzzle” Physical objects are coloured: roses are red, violets are blue, and so forth. In particular, physical objects have fine-grained shades of colour: a certain chip, we can suppose, is true blue (unique, or pure blue). The following sort of scenario is commonplace. The chip looks true blue to John; in the same (ordinary) viewing conditions it looks (slightly) greenish-blue to Jane. Both John and Jane are “normal” perceivers. Now, nothing can be both true blue and greenish-blue; since…Read more
  •  371
    Hallucination, sense-data and direct realism
    Philosophical Studies 120 (1-3): 185-191. 2004.
    Although it has been something of a fetish for philosophers to distinguish between hallucination and illusion, the enduring problems for philosophy of perception that both phenomena present are not essentially different. Hallucination, in its pure philosophical form, is just another example of the philosopher’s penchant for considering extreme and extremely idealized cases in order to understand the ordinary. The problem that has driven much philosophical thinking about perception is the problem…Read more
  •  348
    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
  •  327
    Colors and reflectances
    with Alex Byrne
    In Alex Byrne & David R. Hilbert (eds.), Readings on Color, Volume 1: The Philosophy of Color, Mit Press. 1997.
    When we open our eyes, the world seems full of colored opaque objects, light sources, and transparent volumes. One historically popular view, _eliminativism_, is that the world is not in this respect as it appears to be: nothing has any color. Color _realism_, the denial of eliminativism, comes in three mutually exclusive varieties, which may be taken to exhaust the space of plausible realist theories. Acccording to _dispositionalism_, colors are _psychological_ dispositions: dispositions to pro…Read more
  •  316
    Do we see more than we can access?
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 5 (5-6): 501-502. 2007.
    Short commentary on a paper by Ned Block
  •  291
    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
  •  280
    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
  •  234
    Color constancy and the complexity of color
    Philosophical Topics 33 (1): 141-158. 2005.
    We can start with a definition. “[C]olour constancy is the constancy of the perceived colours of surfaces under changes in the intensity and spectral composition of the illumination.” (Foster et al. 1997) Given the definition we can now ask a question: Does human color vision exhibit color constancy?1 The answer to the question depends in part on how we interpret it. If the question is understood as asking whether human color vision displays constancy for every possible scene across every possib…Read more
  •  232
    Basic sensible qualities and the structure of appearance
    with Alex Byrne
    Philosophical Issues 18 (1): 385-405. 2008.
    A sensible quality is a perceptible property, a property that physical objects (or events) perceptually appear to have. Thus smells, tastes, colors and shapes are sensible qualities. An egg, for example, may smell rotten, taste sour, and look cream and round.1,2 The sensible qualities are not a miscellanous jumble—they form complex structures. Crimson, magenta, and chartreuse are not merely three different shades of color: the first two are more similar than either is to the third. Familiar colo…Read more
  •  229
    "This admirable volume of readings is the first of a pair: the editors are to be applauded for placing the philosophy of color exactly where it should go, in ...
  •  194
    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
  •  186
    Perception and causation
    with Alex Byrne
    Journal of Philosophy 92 (6): 323-329. 1995.
  •  184
    Color realism redux
    with Alex Byrne
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (1): 52-59. 2003.
    Our reply is in three parts. The first part concerns some foundational issues in the debate about color realism. The second part addresses the many objections to the version of physicalism about color ("productance physicalism") defended in the target article. The third part discusses the leading alternative approaches and theories endorsed by the commentators.
  •  175
    Philosophical issues about colour vision
    with Alex Byrne
    In L. Nagel (ed.), Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, Macmillan. 2002.
    The primary issues concern whether objects have colours, and what sorts of properties the colours are. Some philosophers hold that nothing is coloured, others that colour are powers to affect perceivers, and others that colours are physical properties.
  •  151
    Theories of colour
    In Edward Craig (ed.), The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Routledge. 1998.
    The world as perceived by human beings is full of colour. The world as described by physical scientists is composed of colourless particles and fields. Philosophical theories of colour since the scientific revolution have been primarily driven by a desire to harmonize these two apparently conflicting pictures of the world. Any adequate theory of colour has to be consistent with the characteristics of colour as perceived without contradicting the deliverances of the physical sciences. Given this …Read more
  •  131
    Hoffman’s “proof” of the possibility of spectrum inversion
    with Alex Byrne
    Consciousness and Cognition 15 (1): 48-50. 2006.
    Philosophers have devoted a great deal of discussion to the question of whether an inverted spectrum thought experiment refutes functionalism. (For a review of the inverted spectrum and its many philosophical applications, see Byrne, 2004.) If Ho?man is correct the matter can be swiftly and conclusively settled, without appeal to any empirical data about color vision (or anything else). Assuming only that color experiences and functional relations can be mathematically represented, a simple math…Read more
  •  103
    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
  •  101
    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.
  •  100
    In _An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision_ George Berkeley made the claim that,.
  •  100
    Qualia
    In Gibson Bruce (ed.), Sage Encyclopedia of Perception, Sage Publishing. 2010.
    Perception and thought are often, although not exclusively, concerned with information about the world. In the case of perceiving though, unlike thinking, it is widely believed that there is an additional element involved, a subjective feeling or, as it is often put, something that it is like to be perceiving. Qualia are these characteristic feelings that accompany perceiving. One motivation for the idea that we experience qualia is that there is a clear difference between seeing a red tomato an…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
  •  76
    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 ...
  •  74
    Constancy, Content, and Inference
    In Gary Hatfield & Sarah Allred (eds.), Visual Experience: Sensation, Cognition, and Constancy, Oxford University Press. pp. 199. 2012.