Where are the Colors?

Abstract

In this article we explore some prospects and problems of the dispositional analysis of colors as a compromise between physicalism and eliminativism. For physicalism, colors can be identified with physical properties of objects, while for eliminativists such as Galileo, colors are mere names for sensations. Going through the ideas of Barry Stroud, David Hilbert and Joshua Gert, we think that the phenomenon of color constancy can be better understood from the idea that objective color is a disposition to produce apparent colors in varied circumstances. Finally, we point out the reason why the fact that common sense does not regard color as a disposition can be explained by a difference between dispositions to produce appearances and the more common dispositions of the physical world such as solubility and malleability. Unlike these, colors, as dispositions to produce appearances, have broad and everyday conditions of manifestation, with a small temporal gap between the existence of the conditions of manifestation and the manifestation itself.