If everybody in the world thought blue was the best color, would it be a fact that blue is the best color? --Josh, age 11

Comments

In general, the fact that everyone agrees on something is not really enough to make it true. The fact that everyone believes that Brazil is the best team in the World Cup doesn't mean they will win the Cup, or be the best team.

On the other hand, if I believe that Jennifer is my best girl, then she is my best girl. If we all thought that blue was the best colour, then it would be: "our best colour", so perhaps it could be said to be the best colour.

So I think "the best" is used in two ways in your excellent question. (1) It just means "the best" by some external standard, goal-scoring perhaps, so that "Brazil is the best team" means that Brazil will win the Cup. (2) It means that blue is our best colour, the best colour of all of us, the one we all like the most, then it is the best colour - of all of us - though not in the first sense.

I think perhaps it is a little difficult to know how to understand what the fact of being the best colour is. There is something good about each of the colours, no? And also, what are the tests of excellence in a colour? What makes a colour good, better, the best? If it's brightness, then black is a bad colour, and white is a good one. If it's richness, then purple is pretty good, and glossy black. Grey is a bit dull, but some people find it muted and elegant. A sparkling yellow sun on a spring morning has a great colour. So we need to decide what the criteria or standards are here. That might be hard. Or there might be lots of different ones. The best butter knife is not necessarily the best weapon.

Read another response by Jonathan Westphal

Read another response about Beauty, Color