Color, Externalism, and Switch Cases

Southern Journal of Philosophy 45 (3):335-362 (2007)
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Abstract

I defend externalism about color experiences and color thoughts, which I argue color objectivism requires. Externalists face the following question: would a subject's wearing inverting lenses eventually change the color content of, for instance, those visual experiences the subject reports with “red”? From the work of Ned Block, David Velleman, Paul Boghossian, Michael Tye, and Fiona Macpherson, I extract problems facing those who answer “Yes” and problems facing those who answer “No.” I show how these problems can be overcome, leaving externalism available to the color objectivist.

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David Bain
Glasgow University

Citations of this work

Color Terms and Semantic Externalism.Åsa Wikforss - 2012 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 12 (3):399-420.
On the Asymmetry between Twin Earth and Inverted Earth.Hagit Benbaji - 2018 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 99 (S1):137-150.

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References found in this work

Philosophical Investigations.Ludwig Wittgenstein - 1953 - New York, NY, USA: Wiley-Blackwell. Edited by G. E. M. Anscombe.
The Varieties of Reference.Gareth Evans - 1982 - Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edited by John Henry McDowell.
How to do things with words.John Langshaw Austin - 1962 - Oxford [Eng.]: Clarendon Press. Edited by Marina Sbisá & J. O. Urmson.

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