In a message dated 4/20/2015 8:05:24 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx writes:
I don't know which philosopher it is, but surely one of them out there
echoes my contention that if the moon "appears" blue then the moon is blue.
Is is as is, not as it "really" is under some other circumstance. In fact,
considering that color is but the name given to a certain frequency of
electromagnetic radiation that is visible (to most humans) there's no such
thing as the "true" color of anything. Color is predicated only of objects
that reflect electromagnetic radiation and then only when the reflected
radiation is apprehended by the sight sensors. So the moon is sometimes
white,
sometimes blue, sometimes orange, sometimes redish, sometimes otherwise.
The moon has no COLOR it has reflectors only. Now my contention is that ALL
the rest of our experiences of the world are of the same problematic
schema. We deal with it as it appears to us at this or that time, never,
knowingly, never as it truly is. Truth has varying wavelengths. We are but
our
senses. Amen. Yes, I do love the term: "electromagnetic radiation". In
fact, I genuflect to it though I hardly know what it means.
This is yet another field for 'conceptual analysis'. Recall Grice:
"Meet Dr. Puddle, our man in the philosophy of colour."
Grice recalls an American philosopher correcting him, "Color; not colour."
Grice later reminisced: "I wonder how I found THAT out, seeing that the
conversation was executed orally."
In any case, there are two approaches to the philosophy of colour:
conceptual analysis (the allegedly right one) and the Popperian evolutionary
one
in terms of objective knowledge ("evolutionary epistemology").
For the record, I append the biblio in the Stanford.
Grice discusses the implicatures of 'blue' as applied to 'moon', as opposed
to 'cheese'.
There is an implicature, with Grice's example being 'red':
i. The pillar box seems red to me.
Implicature: but it isn't.
Cancellation of implicature: AND it is.
There are disimplicatures, too. Grice's example: green and blue.
A: This tie is blue under this light.
B: Yes, but it is green under this one, and he won't like it.
"No change of colour" need be implicated; so B is 'is' to mean 'seem'. B
disimplicates because he does not implicate (to implicate is to mean more
than you say; to disimplicate is to mean LESS than you say).
Finally, Grice tested his children's playmates abilities with the synthetic
a priori. Can a sweater be green and blue all over? He found at that most
were confused with the question; but seemed to agree with Locke against
Kant.
Cheers,
Speranza
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