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Color, Externalism, and Switch Cases
Author(s) -
Bain David
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
the southern journal of philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.281
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 2041-6962
pISSN - 0038-4283
DOI - 10.1111/j.2041-6962.2007.tb00055.x
Subject(s) - externalism , objectivism , subject (documents) , internalism and externalism , face (sociological concept) , epistemology , philosophy , aesthetics , computer science , linguistics , world wide web
I defend externalism about color experiences and color thoughts, which I argue color objectivism requires. Externalists face the following question: would a subject's wearing inverting lenses eventually change the color content of, for instance, those visual experiences the subject reports with “red”? From the work of Ned Block, David Velleman, Paul Boghossian, Michael Tye, and Fiona Macpherson, I extract problems facing those who answer “Yes” and problems facing those who answer “No.” I show how these problems can be overcome, leaving externalism available to the color objectivist.