Color

Do colors have an independent existence?

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A classic question, which has been MUCH discussed over the centuries -- especially with the rise of early modern philosophy and science (16th-18th centuries) -- rather than give 'the' answer let me mention some historical resources -- beginning at least wiht Galileo but especially prominent with figures like Descartes and Locke, it was recognized that colors don't fit easily/naturally into what were understood to be the genuine physical properties of things -- in Descartes's day it was thought that size, shape, and motion essentially were the only genuine physical properties, and if so, then colors -- which do not seem identifiable with those -- must be said to exist at best only in the mind, as perceivers' responses to those physical properties in objects. John Locke in particular offers numerous arguments in support of this view, you can find them easily by looking him up in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy or elsewhere. But now while our conception of the physical properties of bodies has changed over the centuries, the same basic concern exists: that one cannot identify colors with the properties of objects (molecular structures), nor of light (wavelengths), nor even with the way these things interact with the physical brain. Some useful sources for these views are Larry Hardin's "Color for Philosophers" which does a great job explaining why it's so difficult to identify color as perceived with any physical properties; and then maybe Frank Jackson's classic article "What Mary Doesn't Know" (now reprinted in an anthology filled with much discussion of it) arguing that such phenomena as perceived color can't be identified with anything physical ...

best,

Andrew

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