•  2
    Editorial
    Philosophical Studies 174 (7): 1641-1642. 2017.
  •  2
    Editorial
    Philosophical Studies 174 (7): 1-2. 2017.
  • Primary and secondary qualities
    In Mohan Matthen (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Perception, Oxford University Press Uk. 2015.
  • Michael Tye, Color, Consciousness, and Content
    Journal of Consciousness Studies 8 (8): 90-90. 2001.
  •  48
    Trichromacy and the neural basis of color discrimination
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 20 (2): 206-207. 1997.
    I take issue with Saunders & van Brakel's claim that neural processes play no interesting role in determining color categorizations. I distinguish an aspect of color categorization, namely, color discrimination, from other aspects. The law of trichromacy describes conditions under which physical properties cannot be discriminated in terms of color. Trichromacy is explained by properties of neural processes.
  •  2119
    Existence problems in philosophy and science
    Synthese 190 (18): 4239-4259. 2013.
    We initially characterize what we’ll call existence problems as problems where there is evidence that a putative entity exists and this evidence is not easily dismissed; however, the evidence is not adequate to justify the claim that the entity exists, and in particular the entity hasn’t been detected. The putative entity is elusive. We then offer a strategy for determining whether an existence problem is philosophical or scientific. According to this strategy (1) existence problems are characte…Read more
  •  1191
    Perceived colors and perceived locations: A problem for color subjectivism
    American Philosophical Quarterly 49 (2): 125-138. 2012.
    Color subjectivists claim that, despite appearances to the contrary, the world external to the mind is colorless. However, in giving an account of color perception, subjectivists about the nature of perceived color must address the nature of perceived spatial location as well. The argument here will be that subjectivists’ problems with coordinating the metaphysics of perceived color and perceived location render color perception implausibly mysterious. Consequently, some version of color real…Read more
  •  29
    Physicalism without unknowable colors
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (6): 789-789. 2003.
    Byrne & Hilbert (2003; henceforth B&H) do not adequately explain how it is that phenomenal colors are physical, as their physicalism claims. This explanation requires more characterization of the relationship between the epistemology and nature of color than B&H provide. With this characterization, we can see that a physicalist need not accept unknowable color facts, as B&H do.
  •  542
    Common sense about qualities and senses
    Philosophical Studies 138 (3). 2008.
    There has been some recent optimism that addressing the question of how we distinguish sensory modalities will help us consider whether there are limits on a scientific understanding of perceptual states. For example, Block has suggested that the way we distinguish sensory modalities indicates that perceptual states have qualia which at least resist scientific characterization. At another extreme, Keeley argues that our common-sense way of distinguishing the senses in terms of qualitative proper…Read more
  •  413
    Spectrum Inversion
    In Derek Brown & Fiona Macpherson (eds.), Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Colour, Routledge. forthcoming.
    This chapter examines the spectrum inversion hypothesis as an argument against certain kinds of account of what it’s like to be conscious of color. The hypothesis aims to provide a counterexample to accounts of what it’s like to be conscious of color in non-qualitative terms, as well as to accounts of what it’s like to be conscious of color in terms of the representational content of conscious visual states (which, according to some philosophers, is in turn given an account in non-qualitative t…Read more
  •  118
    The location problem for color subjectivism
    Consciousness and Cognition 10 (1): 42-58. 2001.
    According to color subjectivism, colors are mental properties, processes, or events of visual experiences of color. I first lay out an argument for subjectivism founded on claims from visual science and show that it also relies on a philosophical assumption. I then argue that subjectivism is untenable because this view cannot provide a plausible account of color perception. I describe three versions of subjectivism, each of which combines subjectivism with a theory of perception, namely sense da…Read more
  •  640
    Fitting color into the physical world
    Philosophical Psychology 23 (5): 575-599. 2010.
    I propose a strategy for a metaphysical reduction of perceived color, that is, an identification of perceived color with properties characterizable in non-qualitative terms. According to this strategy, a description of visual experience of color, which incorporates a description of the appearance of color, is a reference-fixing description. This strategy both takes color appearance seriously in its primary epistemic role and avoids rendering color as metaphysically mysterious. I’ll also argue th…Read more
  • Being Red and Seeing Red: Sensory and Perceptible Qualities
    Dissertation, City University of New York. 1997.
    I examine the metaphysical issue of the nature of color. I argue that there are two distinct ranges of colors, namely, physical colors, which are disjunctive monadic physical properties of physical objects, and mental colors, which are properties of neural processes. ;A pair of claims provide the motivation for subjectivist and dispositionalist proposals about the nature of color, proposals which I reject. The first claim holds that a description of colors according to our ordinary experience of…Read more
  •  533
    Sensibility theory and conservative complancency
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 86 (4). 2005.
    In Ruling Passions, Simon Blackburn contends that we should reject sensibility theory because it serves to support a conservative complacency. Blackburn's strategy is attractive in that it seeks to win this metaethical dispute – which ultimately stems from a deep disagreement over antireductionism – on the basis of an uncontroversial normative consideration. Therefore, Blackburn seems to offer an easy solution to an apparently intractable debate. We will show, however, that Blackburn's argument …Read more
  •  557
    Empirical constraints on the problem of free will
    In Susan Pockett, William P. Banks & Shaun Gallagher (eds.), Does Consciousness Cause Behavior?, Mit Press. pp. 125-144. 2006.
    With the success of cognitive science's interdisciplinary approach to studying the mind, many theorists have taken up the strategy of appealing to science to address long standing disputes about metaphysics and the mind. In a recent case in point, philosophers and psychologists, including Robert Kane, Daniel C. Dennett, and Daniel M. Wegner, are exploring how science can be brought to bear on the debate about the problem of free will. I attempt to clarify the current debate by considering how em…Read more
  •  426
    What the Mind-Independence of Color Requires
    In Marcos Silva (ed.), How Colours Matter to Philosophy, Springer. pp. 137-158. 2017.
    The early modern distinction between primary and secondary qualities continues to have a significant impact on the debate about the nature of color. An aspect of this distinction that is still influential is the idea that the mind-independence of color requires that it is a primary quality. Thus, using shape as a paradigm example of a primary quality, a longstanding strategy for determining whether color is mind-independent is to consider whether it is sufficiently similar to shape to be a pr…Read more
  •  87
    The Relativity Of Color
    Synthese 123 (1): 105-129. 2000.
    C. L. Hardin led a recent development in the philosophical literature on color in which research from visual science is used to argue that colors are not properties of physical objects, but rather are mental processes. I defend J. J. C. Smart's physicalism, which claims that colors are physical properties of objects, against this attack. Assuming that every object has a single veridical (that is, nonillusory) color, it seems that physicalism must give a specification of veridical color in terms …Read more
  •  966
    Locating color: Further thoughts
    Consciousness and Cognition 10 (1): 146-156. 2001.
    "The Location Problem for Color Subjectivism" response to commentators.
  •  570
    Color science and spectrum inversion: A reply to Nida-Rumelin
    Consciousness and Cognition 8 (4): 566-570. 1999.
    Martine Nida-Rümelin (1996) argues that color science indicates behaviorally undetectable spectrum inversion is possible and raises this possibility as an objection to functionalist accounts of visual states of color. I show that her argument does not rest solely on color science, but also on a philosophically controversial assumption, namely, that visual states of color supervene on physiological states. However, this assumption, on the part of philosophers or vision scientists, has the effec…Read more
  •  103
    The appearance and nature of color
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 37 (2): 227-252. 1999.
    The problem of the nature of color is typically put in terms of the following question about the intentional content of visual experiences: what’s the nature of the property we attribute to physical objects in virtue of our visual experiences of color? This problem has proven to be tenacious largely because it’s not clear what the constraints are for an answer. With no clarity about constraints, the proposed solutions range widely, the most common dividing into subjectivist views which hold that…Read more
  •  125
    Explaining motivated desires
    Topoi 21 (1-2): 199-207. 2002.
    I examine a dispute about the nature of practical reason, and in particular moral reason, generated by Thomas Nagel's proposal of an internalist rationalism which claims we can explain motivation in terms of reason and belief alone. In opposition, Humeans contend that such explanations must also appeal to further desires. Arguments on either side of this debate typically assume that a rationalist or Humean conclusion can be reached independently of a claim about the nature of moral judgment. …Read more
  •  65
    An externalist approach to understanding color experience
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (6): 968-969. 1999.
    Palmer demarcates the bounds of our understanding of color experience by symmetries in the color space. He claims that if there are symmetries, there can be functionally undetectable color transformations. However, even if there are symmetries, Palmer's support for the possibility of undetectable transformations assumes phenomenal internalism. Alternatively, phenomenal externalism eliminates Palmer's limit on our understanding of color experience.
  •  294
    Qualia and the Senses
    Philosophical Quarterly 51 (205): 495-511. 2001.
    How should we characterize the nature of perceptual experience? Some theorists claim that colour experiences, to take an example of perceptual experiences, have both intentional properties and properties called 'colour qualia', namely, mental qualitative properties which are what it is like to be conscious of colour. Since proponents of colour qualia hold that these mental properties cannot be explained in terms of causal relations, this position is in opposition to a functionalist characterizat…Read more
  •  1823
    Primary and secondary qualities
    In Mohan Matthen (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Perception, Oxford University Press. pp. 405-421. 2016.
    The understanding of the primary-secondary quality distinction has shifted focus from the mechanical philosophers’ proposal of primary qualities as explanatorily fundamental to current theorists’ proposal of secondary qualities as metaphysically perceiver dependent. The chapter critically examines this shift and current arguments to uphold the primary-secondary quality distinction on the basis of the perceiver dependence of color; one focus of the discussion is the role of qualia in these argum…Read more
  •  428
    Color science and spectrum inversion: Further thoughts
    Consciousness and Cognition 8 (4): 575-6. 1999.
    Martine Nida-Rümelin (1996) argues that color science indicates behaviorally undetectable spectrum inversion is possible and raises this possibility as an objection to functionalist accounts of visual states of color. I show that her argument does not rest solely on color science, but also on a philosophically controversial assumption, namely, that visual states of color supervene on physiological states. However, this assumption, on the part of philosophers or vision scientists, has the effec…Read more
  •  529
    Phenomenal Externalism's Explanatory Power
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (3): 613-630. 2018.
    I argue that phenomenal externalism is preferable to phenomenal internalism on the basis of externalism's explanatory power with respect to qualitative character. I argue that external qualities, namely, external physical properties that are qualitative independent of consciousness, are necessary to explain qualitative character, and that phenomenal externalism is best understood as accepting external qualities while phenomenal internalism is best understood as rejecting them. I build support fo…Read more