Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

The Self-Locating Property Theory of Color

  • Published:
Minds and Machines Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The paper reviews the empirical evidence for highly significant variation across perceivers in hue perception and argues that color physicalism cannot accommodate this variability. Two views that can accommodate the individual differences in hue perception are considered: the self-locating property theory, according to which colors are self-locating properties, and color relationalism, according to which colors are relations to perceivers and viewing conditions. It is subsequently argued that on a plausible rendition of the two views, the self-locating theory has a slight advantage over color relationalism in being truer to the phenomenology of our color experiences.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

Explore related subjects

Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.

Notes

  1. I have defended this theory under different labels in, among other places, Brogaard (2009, 2010, 2012a: Chap 8, b).

  2. In their talk at the color and philosophy conference at Auburn University, March 2–3, 2012, Byrne and Hilbert used ‘color relativism’ as a label for my self-locating property theory and Jonathan Cohen’s relational theory. Elsewhere I have used the label ‘color relativism’ more narrowly for the self-locating property theory. See Brogaard (2012b). There are, of course, numerous other defenders of these or similar views of color. One that immediately comes to mind is Chirimuuta (2015). Chalmers (2006) defends a kind of color physicalism but takes the content of color perception to include self-locating properties.

  3. Individuals and times cannot be chosen at random. For example, there is no centered world containing the time 2000 BC and me at the center, as I didn’t exist then.

  4. See e.g., discussion here. http://notes-from-dreamworlds.blogspot.com/2013/06/fluorescent-colors-of-reef-coral.html.

  5. Here I have in mind people who think that the phenomenology of perception is externalist and who think that high-level properties, like that of being water, is presented in perception.

  6. Thanks to Mazviita Chirimuuta and an anonymous reviewer for very helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

References

  • Akins, K. (2001). More than mere coloring: A dialog between philosophy and neuroscience on the nature of spectral vision. In S. Fitzpatrick & J. T. Breur (Eds.), Carving our destiny. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Armstrong, D. (1961). Perception and the physical world. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Armstrong, D. (1968). A materialist theory of mind. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Averill, E. W. (1992). The Relational Nature of Color. The Philosophical Review, 101, 551–588.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Billock, V. A., Gleason, G. A., & Tsou, B. H. (2001). Perception of forbidden colours in retinally stabilized equiluminant images: an indication of softwired cortical colour opponency? Journal of the Optical Society of America A (Optical Society of America), 18, 2398–2403.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Block, N. (1990). Inverted Earth. In J. Tomberlin (Ed.), Philosophical Perspectives (Vol. 4). Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview.

    Google Scholar 

  • Block, N. (1996). Mental paint and mental latex. Philosophical Issues, 7, 19–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Block, N. (2010). Attention and mental paint. Philosophical Issues, 20(1), 23–63.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Bor, D., Billington, J., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2007). Savant memory for digits in a case of synaesthesia and Asperger syndrome is related to hyperactivity in the lateral prefrontal cortex. Neurocase, 13, 311–319.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brogaard, B. (2009). Color in the theory of colors? Or: Are philosophers’ colors all white? In G. Yancy (Ed.), The center must not hold: White women on the whiteness of philosophy (pp. 131–152). New York: Lexington Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brogaard, B. (2010). Perspectival truth and color primitivism. In C. Wright & N. Pedersen (Eds.), New waves in truth (pp. 249–266). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brogaard, B. (2012a). Transient truths. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brogaard, B. (2012b). Colour eliminativism or colour relativism? Philosophical Papers, 41(2), 305–321.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brogaard, B. (2013). Do we perceive natural kind properties? Philosophical Studies, 162(1), 35–42.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Brogaard, B. Manuscript, Seeing and Saying. Oxford University Press.

  • Brogaard, B., Vanni, S., & Silvanto, J. (2013). Seeing mathematics: Perceptual experience and brain activity in acquired synesthesia. Neurocase, 19(6), 566–575.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Byrne, A. (2006). Comments on Cohen, Mizrahi, Maund, and Levine. Dialectica, 60, 337–340.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Byrne, A., & Hilbert, D. R. (2003). Colour realism and colour science. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 26, 3–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chalmers, D. J. (2006). Perception and the fall from Eden. In T. Gendler & J. Hawthorne (Eds.), Perceptual experience (pp. 49–125). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Chirimuuta, M. (2015). Perceptual pragmatism and the secondary qualities. In Outside color: Perceptual science and the puzzle of color in philosophy, chap. 5. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

  • Cohen, J. (2009). The red and the real. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, J. (2010). Color relationalism and color phenomenology. In B. Nanay (Ed.), Perceiving the world (pp. 13–32). New York: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Crane, H. D., & Piantanida, T. P. (1983). On seeing reddish green and yellowish blue. Science, 221, 1078–1080.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dixon, M. J., Smilek, D., & Merikle, P. M. (2004). Not all synaesthetes are created equal: Projector versus associator synaesthetes. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 4, 335–343.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hardin, C. L. (1985). Color for philosophers: Unweaving the rainbow (expanded ed.). Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hilbert, D. (1987). Colour and colour perception: A study in anthropocentric realism. Stanford: CSLI.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jameson, K. A. (2007). Tetrachromatic colour vision. In P. Wilken, T. Bayne, & A. Cleeremans (Eds.), The Oxford companion to consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jameson, K. A., Bimler, D., & Wasserman, L. M. (2006). Re-assessing perceptual diagnostics for observers with diverse retinal photopigment genotypes. In N. J. Pitchford & C. P. Biggam (Eds.), Progress in colour studies 2: Cognition (pp. 13–33). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Jameson, K. A., Highnote, S. M., & Wasserman, L. M. (2001). Richer colour experience in Observers with multiple photopigment opsin genes. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 8, 244–261.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kuehni, R. G. (2001). Determination of unique hues using Munsell colour chips. Colour Research & Applications, 26, 61–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, D. (1979). Attitudes de dicto and de se. The Philosophical Review, 88, 513–543.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Malkoc, G., Kay, P., & Webster, M. A. (2005). Variations in normal colour vision. IV. Binary hues and hue scaling. Journal of the Optical Society of America, A, 22, 2154–2168.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Matthen, M. (1988). Biological function and perceptual content. Journal of Philosophy, 85, 5–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Perry, J. (1979). The problem of the essential indexical. Noûs, 13(1), 3–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pylyshyn, Z. W. (1999). Is vision continuous with cognition? The case for cognitive impenetrability of visual perception. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 341–423.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramachandran, V. S., & Hubbard, E. M. (2003). The phenomenology of synaesthesia. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 10, 49–57.

    Google Scholar 

  • Siegel, S. (2005). Which properties are represented in perception? In T. Szabo Gendler & J. Hawthorne (Eds.), Perceptual experience (pp. 481–503). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stark, W. S. (1987). Photopic sensitivities to ultraviolet and visible wavelengths and the effects of the macular pigments in human aphakic observers. Current Eye Research, 6, 631–638.

  • Stark, W. S., Wagner, R. H., Gillespie, C. M. (1994). Ultraviolet sensitivity of three cone types in the aphakic observer determined by chromatic adaptation. Vision Research, 34, 1457–1459.

  • Tye, M. (2000). Consciousness, colour, and content. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Webster, M. A., Juricevic, I., & McDermott, K. C. (2010). Simulations of adaptation and color appearance in observers with varying spectral sensitivity. Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics, 30(5), 602–610.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Webster, M. A., Miyahara, E., Malkoc, G., & Raker, V. E. (2000). Variations in normal color vision. II. Unique Hues. Journal of the Optical Society of America A: Optics, Image Science, and Vision, 17, 1545–1555.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Webster, M. A., Webster, S. M., Bharadwaj, S., Verma, R., Jaikumar, J., Madan, G., & Vaithilingham, E. (2002). Variations in normal color vision. III. Unique hues in Indian and United States observers. Journal of the Optical Society of America A: Optics, Image Science, and Vision, 19(10), 1951–1962.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Winderickx, J., Lindsey, D. T., Sanocki, E., Teller, D. Y., Motulsky, A. G., & Deeb, S. S. (1992). Polymorphism in red photopigment underlies variation in colour matching. Nature, 356, 431–433.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA

    Berit Brogaard

  2. University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Berit Brogaard

Authors
  1. Berit Brogaard
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Berit Brogaard.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Brogaard, B. The Self-Locating Property Theory of Color. Minds & Machines 25, 133–147 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-015-9373-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-015-9373-y

Keywords