Colour Relationalism and the Real Deliverances of Introspection

Erkenntnis 79 (5):1173-1189 (2014)
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Abstract

Colour relationalism holds that the colours are constituted by relations to subjects. Anti-relationalists have claimed that this view stands in stark contrast to our phenomenally-informed, pre-theoretic intuitions. Is this claim right? Cohen and Nichols’ recent empirical study suggests not, as about half of their participants seemed to be relationalists about colour. Despite Cohen and Nichols’ study, we think that the anti-relationalist’s claim is correct. We explain why there are good reasons to suspect that Cohen and Nichols’ experimental design skewed their results in favour of relationalism. We then run an improved study and find that most of our participants seem to be anti-relationalists. We find some other interesting things too. Our results suggest that the majority of ordinary people find it no less intuitive that colours are objective than that shapes are objective. We also find some evidence that when those with little philosophical training are asked about the colours of objects, their intuitions about colour and shape cases are similar, but when asked about people’s colour ascriptions, their intuitions about colour and shape cases differ.

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Citations of this work

Experimental Philosophy of Consciousness.Kevin Reuter - forthcoming - In Joshua Knobe & Shaun Nichols (eds.), Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy. Oxford University Press.
Folk Core Beliefs about Color.Pendaran Roberts & Kelly Ann Schmidtke - 2019 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 10 (4):849-869.
Qualities and the Galilean View.Michelle Liu - 2021 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 28 (9-10):147-162.

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Perception and the fall from Eden.David J. Chalmers - 2006 - In Tamar Szabó Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Perceptual Experience. Oxford University Press. pp. 49--125.
Naming and Necessity.S. Kripke - 1972 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 45 (4):665-666.

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