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On the Reality (and Diversity) of Objective Colors: How Color-Qualia Space Is a Map of Reflectance-Profile Space

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Paul Churchland
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Abstract

How, if at all, does the internal structure of human phenomenological color space map onto the internal structure of objective reflectance-profile space, in such a fashion as to provide a useful and accurate representation of that objective feature space? A prominent argument (due to Hardin, among others) proposes to eliminate colors as real, objective properties of objects, on grounds that nothing in the external world (and especially not surface-reflectance-profiles) answers to the well-known and quite determinate internal structure of human phenomenological color space. The present paper proposes a novel way to construe the objective space of possible reflectance profiles so that (1) its internal structure becomes evident, and (2) that structure's homomorphism with the internal structure of human phenomenological color space becomes obvious. The path is thus reopened to salvage the objective reality of colors, in the same way that we preserved the objective reality of such features as temperature, pitch, and sourness—by identifying them with some objective feature recognized in modern physical theory.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 74 , Issue 2 , April 2007 , pp. 119 - 149
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

The central idea of this paper occurred to me while listening to a provocative talk on color given by Mohan Matthen during the Vancouver Conference on the Philosophy of Color, in October of 2003. My thanks for his inspiration. The paper also reflects what I have learned over the years, about color, from Larry Hardin, Kathleen Akins, and Martin Hahn. My thanks to them also.

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