[lit-ideas] Unweaving the Rainbow
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:07:22 EDT
Thanks, S. Trevor. I hope this will be my last today -- I meant to comment
on Hume's intriguing thing -- and have selected the passages below.
I see there is a link to a philosophy-of-color page. The mailer I'm using
does not allow me to exactly see what website that is -- let's check:
(going back I see it is)
web.mit.edu/philos/www/color-biblio.htm
and "Unweaving the rainbow" being one title. As R. Paul noted, I was
considering Locke's view on colours -- I indeed attended B. Stroud, Tanner
Lectures on Colours, which were very passionate.
The shade of blue/green Grice considers in connection with ties (WOW, iii)
-- and it may relate to D. Hume's point that blue is more similar to green
than it is to scarlet.
I have never analysed Grice's example in great detail since indeed colours
do confuse me. I cannot see how Grice can say that a tie _is_ blue/green.
Colour seems to be something they _seem_ but never are.
Yet Grice allows that we do use the is/seem distinction re: ties:
"This tie is blue under this light"
"Yes, but it is green under this other light"
(googlebooks for actual examples).
Grice wants to say that under maximal exchange of informativeness
'seems blue'/seems green
would be the _perfectly_ grammatical thing to say. But he allows that
sloppy use would allow for 'is green/is blue' -- "when no change of colour is in
view". S. R. Chapman quotes from unpublished sources to catalogue this as
a case of disimplicature: when words mean LESS than they say.
Anyway, here below the Hume bits for easy reference.
Cheers,
JL Speranza
Buenos Aires, Argentina
>The Missing Shade of Blue is an example introduced by the Scottish
philosopher David Hume
>to show that it is at least
>
> conceivable
>
>that the mind can generate an idea without first being exposed to the
relevant sensory experience.
>In both A Treatise of Human Nature and An Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding Hume argues that all perceptions of the mind can be classed as
>either 'Impressions' or 'Ideas'. He further argues that
>There is, however, one contradictory phaenomenon, which may prove, that
it is not absolutely impossible for ideas to arise, independent of their
>correspondent impressions. I believe it will readily be allowed, that the
several distinct ideas of colour, which enter by the eye,
>are really different from each other; though, at the same time,
resembling. Now if this be true of different colours, it must be no less so
>of the
different SHADES of blue; and each shade produces a distinct idea,
independent of the rest.
>Suppose, therefore, a person to have enjoyed his sight for thirty years,
and to have become perfectly acquainted with colours of all kinds, except
one particular
>SHADE OF BLUE, for instance, which it never has been his fortune to meet
with. Let all the different shades of that colour, except that single one,
be >placed before him, descending gradually from the deepest to the
lightest; it is plain, that he will perceive a blank, where that shade is
wanting,
and will be >sensible, that there is a greater distance in that place
between the contiguous colours than in any other. Now I ask, whether it be
possible for him, from his >own imagination, to supply this deficiency, and
raise up to himself the idea of that particular shade, though it had never been
conveyed to him by his senses? >I believe there are few but will be of
opinion that he can.
>It is also said that when Hume says, “Let all the different shades of
that colour, except that single one, be placed before him, descending
gradually from the >deepest to the lightest; it is plain that he will perceive
a
blank, where that shade is wanting”, he is assuming that colours are composed
of a set of distinct >independent hues when in reality they form a
continuum. In this matter it does seem as if Hume is simply wrong.
>after experiencing the full range of colours a little experimentation
will soon show that it is much easier for most people to recognise that there
is a missing >shade than it is for them to actually form a clear idea of
that missing shade.
>Fogelin argues that the reason this exception is a genuine exception that
can be safely ignored is because despite being simple ideas, colours and
>shades can be organised into a highly organised colour space.
Hume allows that some simple ideas can be seen to be similar to one another
without them sharing anything in common. The proviso that they do not
share anything in common is important because otherwise this feature might be
separated off and this would show that the original idea was in fact
complex. In a note added to the Treatise commenting on abstract ideas Hume
says,
>BLUE and GREEN are different simple ideas, but are more resembling than
BLUE and SCARLET.
>It is this very ability to recognize similarity that enables us to
arrange the shades of blue in order and to notice that two adjoining shades
differ more than >any two other adjoining shades.
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