Color Ontology and Color Science

Description

Summary Leading philosophers and scientists consider what conclusions about color can be drawn when the latest analytic tools are applied to the most sophisticated color science. Philosophers and scientists have long speculated about the nature of color. Atomists such as Democritus thought color to be "conventional," not real; Galileo and other key figures of the Scientific Revolution thought that it was an erroneous projection of our own sensations onto external objects. More recently, philosophers have enriched the debate about color by aligning the most advanced color science with the most sophisticated methods of analytical philosophy. In this volume, leading scientists and philosophers examine new problems with new analytic tools, considering such topics as the psychophysical measurement of color and its implications, the nature of color experience in both normal color-perceivers and the color blind, and questions that arise from what we now know about the neural processing of color information, color consciousness, and color language. Taken together, these papers point toward a complete restructuring of current orthodoxy concerning color experience and how it relates to objective reality. Kuehni, Jameson, Mausfeld, and Niederee discuss how the traditional framework of a three-dimensional color space and basic color terms is far too simple to capture the complexities of color experience. Clark and MacLeod discuss the difficulties of a materialist account of color experience. Churchland, Cohen, Matthen, and Westphal offer competing accounts of color ontology. Finally, Broackes and Byrne and Hilbert discuss the phenomenology of color blindness. Contributors Justin Broackes, Alex Byrne, Paul M. Churchland, Austen Clark, Jonathan Cohen, David R. Hilbert, Kimberly A. Jameson, Rolf Kuehni, Don I.A. MacLeod, Mohan Matthen, Rainer Mausfeld, Richard Niederée, Jonathan Westphal Introduction ix I Color and Structure: Current Views 1 1 Color Spaces and Color Order Systems: A Primer 3 Rolf G. Kuehni 2 On the Reality (and Diversity) of Objective Colors: How Color-Qualia Space Is a Map of Reflectance-Profile Space 37 Paul M. Churchland 3 Color Experience: A Semantic Theory 67 Mohan Matthen 4 More than Three Dimensions: What Continuity Considerations Can Tell Us about Perceived Color 91 Reinhard Niederée 5 Color within an Internalist Framework: The Role of “Color” in the Structure of the Perceptual System 123 Rainer Mausfeld II Color Spaces and Explanatory Spaces 149 6 Into the Neural Maze 151 Donald I. A. MacLeod 7 Where in the World Color Survey Is the Support for Color Categorization Based on the Hering Primaries? 179 Kimberly A. Jameson 8 Color, Qualia, and Attention: A Nonstandard Interpretation 203 Austen Clark 9 It’s Not Easy Being Green: Hardin and Color Relationalism 229 Jonathan Cohen 10 How Can the Logic of Color Concepts Apply to Afterimage Colors? 245 Jonathan Westphal III Color Blindness 257 11 How Do Things Look to the Color-Blind? 259 Alex Byrne and David R. Hilbert 12 What Do the Color-Blind See? 291 Justin Broackes Contributors 407 Index 409