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Can Colour be Reduced to Anything?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Don Dedrick
Don Dedrick*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Abstract

C. L. Hardin has argued that the colour opponency of the vision system leads to chromatic subjectivism: chromatic sensory states reduce to neurophysiological states. Much of the force of Hardin's argument derives from a critique of chromatic objectivism. On this view chromatic sensory states are held to reduce to an external property. While I agree with Hardin's critique of objectivism it is far from clear that the problems which beset objectivism do not apply to the subjectivist position as well. I develop a critique of subjectivism that parallels Hardin's antiobjectivist argument.

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Footnotes

†

Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M55 1A1.

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