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Color and the inverted spectrumIn Steven Davis (ed.), Vancouver Studies in Cognitive Science, Oxford University Press. 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)
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IntroductionIn Alex Byrne & Heather Logue (eds.), Disjunctivism: Contemporary Readings, Mit Press. 2009.
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Colors and reflectancesIn 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
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158Color constancy and the complexity of colorPhilosophical 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
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12Erster Teil Die übliche Auffassung von der Mathematik und ihre Widerlegung.- 1 Die Rolle von Anschauung und Erfahrung.- 2 Die Rolle der Voraussetzungen.- 3 Die Nichtuntrüglichkeit des mathematischen Schliessens.- Zweiter Teil Die landläufige Auffassung von der Physik und ihre Berichtigung.- 4 Physikalische Begriffsbildungen.- 5 Die Gesetze der Physik und ewige Naturgesetze.- 6 Die Beziehung zwischen Theorie und Experiment.- Dritter Teil Fragen philosophischen Charakters.- 7 Physikalische Gesetzl…Read more
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1VisionIn Mohan Matthen (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Perception, Oxford University Press Uk. 2015.
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10The Geometry of Vision and the Mind Body Problem (review)Philosophical Review 100 (2): 293-297. 1991.
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1124The science of color and color visionIn Derek H. Brown & Fiona Macpherson (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Colour, Routledge. 2021.A survey of color science and color vision.
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802Objectivist reductionismIn Derek H. Brown & Fiona Macpherson (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Colour, Routledge. 2021.A survey of arguments for and against the view that colors are physical properties.
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61A Naïve Realist Theory of Colour (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 97 (2): 408-411. 2019.Volume 97, Issue 2, June 2019, Page 408-411.
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The Objectivity of ColorDissertation, Stanford University. 1987.Color has often been supposed to be a subjective property: a property which has its correct analysis in terms of phenomenological aspects of human experience. The most influential form of subjectivism with respect to color has been the dispositional analysis of Locke and Newton. On this view the color of an object is analyzed in terms of its disposition to produce certain kinds of experiences. ;In contrast with subjectivism an objectivist analysis of color takes color to be a property objects po…Read more
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325Do 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
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506Color PrimitivismErkenntnis 66 (1-2). 2007.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
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44Basic tastes and unique huesBehavioral and Brain Sciences 31 (1): 82-82. 2008.The logic of the basic taste concept is discussed in relation to the physiology and psychophysics of color vision. An alternative version of the basic taste model, analogous to opponent-process theory is introduced. The logic of quality naming experiments is clarified
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197Readings on Color, Volume 1: The Philosophy of ColorMIT Press. 1997."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 ...
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184Theories of colourIn Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Genealogy to Iqbal, Routledge. pp. 428-431. 1996.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
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213Color realism reduxBehavioral 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.
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380Hallucination, sense-data and direct realismPhilosophical 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
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26Comparative color vision and the objectivity of colorBehavioral and Brain Sciences 15 (1): 38-39. 1992.
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38Spraying colorIn Hilbert David R. (ed.), 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
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336Colors and reflectancesIn 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
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40Drink on, the jolly prelate criesIn Steven D. Hales (ed.), Beer and Philosophy: The Unexamined Beer Isn't Worth Drinking, Blackwell. 2007.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
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112Color and Color Perception: A Study in Anthropocentric RealismCsli Press. 1987.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
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60Readings on Color, Volume 2: The Science of Color (edited book)MIT Press. 1997.These volumes will serve as useful resources for anyone interested in philosophy of color perception or color science.
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106In _An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision_ George Berkeley made the claim that,.
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113Color realism revisitedBehavioral 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.
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125Hardin, Tye, and Color PhysicalismJournal 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
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Perception |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Philosophy of Mind |
George Berkeley |
17th/18th Century British Philosophy |
Philosophy of Biology |