Colour Relationalism and the Real Deliverances of Introspection

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

Qualities and the Galilean View

“…There is a long philosophical tradition that treats colours as less objective and real than shapes. Empirical evidence suggests that philosophers are less likely than nonphilosophers to treat colours as being as objective as shapes (Roberts et al 2014). But suppose that we were never enthralled by the Galilean view; suppose Galileo and other enlightenment scientists and philosophers never proposed to eliminate colours from the physical world, and instead treated them as something real but beyond the reach of physical science.…”

The Myth of the Common-sense Conception of Colour

“…There are two experimental studies that aim to directly address the question of whether non-philosophers conceive of colors as relational or non-relational properties: Cohen and Nichols (2010) and Roberts et al (2014). Cohen and Nichols find that only a minority (35.5%) of participants consistently judge in a way that is compatible with color being a non-relational property, in contrast with a majority who judge in a way that is compatible with shape being a non-relational property (65.5%).…”

Intuitions

“…17 I have done it myself (Andow, 2014(Andow, , 2015aRoberts et al, 2014). 18 It is something I do myself (Andow2015c,under review.…”