Rediscovering Colors: A Study in Pollyanna RealismIn Rediscovering Colors: A Study in Pollyanna Realism, Michael Watkins endorses the Moorean view that colors are simple, non-reducible, properties of objects. Consequently, Watkins breaks from what has become the received view that either colors are reducible to certain properties of interest to science, or else nothing is really colored. What is novel about the work is that Watkins, unlike other Mooreans, takes seriously the metaphysics of colors. Consequently, Watkins provides an account of what colors are, how they are related to the physical properties on which they supervene, and how colors can be causally efficacious without the threat of causal overdetermination. Along the way, he provides novel accounts of normal conditions and non-human color properties. The book will be of interest to any metaphysician and philosopher of mind interested in colors and color perception. |
Contents
Pollyanna Realism and the Simple Theory | 1 |
Why Colors are Not Physical Properties | 19 |
Why Colors are Not Relational Properties | 45 |
Identifying Colors Relationally Specifying a Nonrelational Property | 65 |
Colros Dispositions and Causal Powers | 107 |
A Simple Theory of Normal Conditions | 139 |
Animals the Color Blind and Far Away Places | 165 |
Ecce Colores | 185 |
| 195 | |
| 203 | |
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Common terms and phrases
A-area account of colors Allan Gibbard Anthropocentric Anthropocentric Realism argue argument believe blue objects blueness causal closure causal contributions causal features causal powers causally efficacious causally responsible ceteris paribus chameleon Chapter circular color blind color categories color experiences color illusion Color Incompatibility Claim color predicates color space colors as relational colors of objects conditional powers determining the color different colors Disjunctive Physicalism disjunctive properties dispositional account dispositional properties Dispositionalism emergentism explain green Hilbert hyper-skepticism identical imagine insist instance instantiation intrinsic properties intuition ISBN J.J.C. Smart Jackson and Pargetter Keith Lehrer Kripke lighting conditions look blue looks red McGinn metamerically metaphysical nomic nomic pluralism normal conditions normal observers object's color observers under normal ontologically serious ostension ostensive definition overdetermination philosopher physical properties physicalist Pollyanna Pollyanna Realism problem properties of interest properties of objects qualia relational properties simple theory something's specify strategy supervene tell Thompson treat colors yellow