Behavioral and Brain Sciences



Continuing Commentary
Commentary on Alex Byrne & David R. Hilbert (2003). Color realism and color science. BBS 26(1):3–21.

Colors as explainers?


Andrew Botterell a1
a1 Department of Philosophy, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CA 94928 andrew.botterell@sonoma.edu http://www.sonoma.edu/users/b/botterel/

Abstract

Byrne & Hilbert (B&H) argue that colors are reflectance properties of objects. They also claim that a necessary condition for something's being a color is that it causally explain – or be causally implicated in the explanation of – our perceptions of color. I argue that these two positions are in conflict.