Topics Color

Question The word 'color' has three meanings, as far as I can tell: 1, certain properties of atoms and molecules that make them emit electromagnetic radiation in the so-called visible range; 2, mixtures of frequencies of this electromagnetic radiation that go to the eye of the observer and produce an image on his/hers retina; and 3, sensations of color that this observer experiences. So if I am looking at a green leaf, which of these three meanings of 'green' am I experiencing?

Accepted:
January 21, 2006

Comments

John Locke makes a similar distinction between primary qualities -- roughly your (1) and (2) -- and secondary qualities -- your (3). On his analysis, this is between qualities that actually inhere in things, and qualities that are only in our ideas of things because they are a result of the relation of a thing and our senses.

It seems to me that your question already answers itself. You define meaning 3 as 'sensations of color that this observer experiences'; but your question reads 'which of these three ... am I experiencing?' Perhaps though you meant to use the word 'experience' in two different senses. The first sense (used in definition 3) would be 'the purely mental content that results from the external influence'; the second sense (used in the question) would be 'what is most immediately encountered, rather than inferred.'

Current common sense would tend to answer in the same way you already did, inadvertently. It is the color sensation that I encounter immediately and thus which I experience.

However, consider the following example. A botanist is looking at a tree and she says 'I see that this specimen is lacking potassium.' Must we assume that she sees a particular shade of green and this is for her a sign that indicates the health of the tree? Or can we argue instead that she straightforwardly experiences a tree lacking potassium, and that it would take a special effort to 'back up' from her professional activity, and 'see' just the color green. Philosophers working in the phenomenological tradition are inclined to understand things in the second way.

Even supposing that we accept that analysis, it doesn't yet answer your question. For only a physicist interested in electromagnetic radiation (or perhaps a philosopher pretending to be a physicist!) could be plausibly said to 'experience' a color in that way. As above, a botanist would instead experience a leaf of this or that species, this or that state of health. An interior decorator would see 'just the right' or 'entirely the wrong' paint. Your question assumes (with good reason, and in agreement with Locke) that physics offers the most fundamental and universal account of the 'primary quality' meaning of colour. But that does not necessarily mean it is the most immediately available and useful account.

So, at the very least, we should add a fourth possibility to your list: 'If I am looking at a green leaf, which 'green' am I experiencing?' (4) the green of the leaf.

Instead of answering your question, I just managed to make it more difficult. Apologies.