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The unique hues and the argument from phenomenal structure

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Abstract

Hardin’s (Color for philosophers: unweaving the rainbow, Hackett, Indianapolis, 1988) empirically-grounded argument for color eliminativism has defined the color realism debate for the last 30 years. By Hardin’s own estimation, phenomenal structure—the unique/binary hue distinction in particular—poses the greatest problem for color realism. Examination of relevant empirical findings shows that claims about the unique hues which play a central role in the argument from phenomenal structure should be rejected. Chiefly, contrary to widespread belief amongst philosophers and scientists, the unique hues do not play a fundamental role in determining all color appearances. Among the consequences of this result is that greater attention should be paid to certain proposals for putting the structure of phenomenal color into principled correspondence with surface reflectance properties. While color realism is not fully vindicated, it has much greater empirical plausibility than previously thought.

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Notes

  1. There are some similarities between Churchland’s claim about extra-representational structure and the view developed in this paper; viz., that the unique/binary distinction is not essential to color. However, one of the main targets of this paper is the standard understanding of the unique/binary distinction that Churchland accepts and chalks up as extra-representational structure. I am also calling into question the idea that the uniqueness of the unique hues is grounded in opponent-processing in anything like the way that Churchland has in mind.

  2. To be clear, I am not questioning that Forder et al. (2017) have found a strong neural marker of the unique hues. I am only pointing out that their discovery by itself does not support the mainstream view that the unique hues play a fundamental, organizing role in the structure of phenomenal color. As Forder et al note (ibid., p. 4), the neural signature they identify occurs as part of the P2 event-related potential (ERP) component that reflects post-perceptual, visuocognitive processes. They found no evidence of a neural marker of the unique hues in earlier, visual ERP components. Forder et al are quite clear that the marker found in the P2 component is neutral with respect to the thesis that the unique hues have a perceptual salience that is “hardwired” into the human visual system (ibid., p. 5). The authors cite several extant challenges to the hardwired perceptual salience hypothesis, including studies discussed in this paper; note that one of the co-authors of Forder et al, Jenny Bosten, is a co-author of two of the articles I draw on. They go on to propose that, with their finding in hand, further work can be done to disentangle the various factors—e.g., social, environmental, neural—that potentially shape the significance of the unique hues. The arguments of this paper are relevant to what direction that future research might take.

  3. Note also that there is no issue whatsoever for either using the unique green spectral stimulus to null the reddish component encountered at long and short wavelengths or using non-spectral unique red stimuli in other experimental settings.

  4. See also Bruce MacEvoy’s artist’s color wheel and discussion of visual complements at https://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/color16.html.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to two anonymous referees of this journal for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. I would also like to thank Kimberly Jameson and A. Kimball Romney for discussions that greatly aided my thinking on the issues addressed herein.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, California State University, Long Beach, 1250 Bellflower Boulevard, Long Beach, CA, 90840, USA

    Wayne Wright

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Wright, W. The unique hues and the argument from phenomenal structure. Philos Stud 176, 1513–1533 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-018-1076-9

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