[lit-ideas] The Synthetic A Priori: A Kantotelian Approach
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 16:42:43 -0400
In a message dated 5/14/2015 11:44:39 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
RichardHenninge@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
From Remarks on Color:
91. If there were a harmony theory of colors, it would probably begin with
a division of the colors into different groups and would forbid certain
mixtures or combinations, would allow others; and it would, like harmony
theory, not justify its rules. 92. Can that not shed us some light on the
nature [Art] of those differences between the colors? 93. [We do not say A
knows
something, B knows the opposite. But if one replaces "knows" by
"believes," then it is a proposition.]
harmony theory.
Indeed. Lehre need not be a theory! In "Wind in the Willows", even, 'to
learn' is to teach! ("We have to learn him").
The focus seems indeed on 'justify'. One thing is for the 'lehre' or
'teaching' (as in "He is my teacher of painting") to FORBID this or that (a
combo of colors) -- but of course it's PEOPLE who forbid (or God). Is 'forbid'
the verb we want with 'Lehre'?
Another thing is to 'justify' the rules. So it would be that the 'lehre'
would include a set of 'rules' and it's, metaphorically, the rules that would
'forbid' a certain combo of colors (or 'mix', as Witters has it).
Witters takes for granted that a "Lehre" need NOT justify its own rules. In
fact, if axioms they are self-justifying. But isn't self-justification a
sort of justification? Of course it is!
Indeed, 'shed light' seems to be a pun on Gœthe's obsession, 'light'.
All the interpretations of Witters's remarks on colours dwell on the
analytic; but it seems that like Gœthe, and later Grice, they are into a
different realm here: the synthetic a priori, and the thanks are to Kantotle!
Witters is content to regard Gœthe's observations as a kind of logic or
geometry. Witters takes his examples from the Runge letter included in the
"Farbenlehre", e.g.
i. White is the lightest colour.
ii. There cannot be a transparent white.
iii. There cannot be a reddish green.
And so on.
if not
iv. Can a sweater be red and green all over? No stripes allowed.
The logical status of these propositions in Wittgenstein's investigation,
including their relation to physics, is discussed, for the record, in
Jonathan Westphal's Colour: a Philosophical Introduction (Westphal).
For Witters to say that
v. A sweater can be red and green all over.
is NOT to say something. Or rather, not to say something WITH meaning: so
for Witters there is no absolute overlap, as it wouldn't, between meaning
and analyticity.
Gœthe was not THAT concerned with Kant and the analytic and the depth
grammar, but then why should he? (Nor with the role of an analytic philosopher)
Cheers,
Speranza
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