PETER W.

ROSS

THE RELATIVITY OF COLOR

ABSTRACT. C. L. Hardin led a recent development in the philosophical literature on

color in which research from visual science is used to argue that colors are not properties
of physical objects, but rather are mental processes. I defend J. J. C. Smart’s physicalism,
which claims that colors are physical properties of objects, against this attack. Assuming
that every object has a single veridical (that is, nonillusory) color, it seems that physicalism
must give a specification of veridical color in terms natural to physics, independently of
our interests. Hardin argues that since physicalism doesn’t give us any such specification
of veridical color, this view is false. However, this argument assumes a mistaken account
of veridical color. I show physicalism can appeal to an alternative account, according to
which veridical color is characterized in terms of favored conditions of perceptual access,
independently of any specification of the physical nature of color.

1. INTRODUCTION

Much recent discussion has focused on the question of the constituting

nature of the colors we attribute to physical objects1 in virtue of our
visual experiences of color. The most common answers are: these colors
are mental properties, processes, or events (subjectivism),2 they are phys-
ical properties of physical objects (physicalism),3 they are dispositions of
physical objects to produce visual experiences of color (dispositionalism),4
or they are sui generis properties of physical objects (primitivism and
impressionism).5
How do we decide among these views? A recent development in the
philosophical literature on color, led by Hardin (1993) and now joined by
Clark (1996 and forthcoming), has been the use of research from visual
science, in particular, psychophysics and neurophysiology, to argue that
proposals that claim that colors are properties of physical objects – which
I’ll call realist proposals – are false, and that colors are mental processes or
events which are identified with neural processes or events.6 I’ll defend a
particular realist proposal, a version of physicalism, against their attack.
This version of physicalism, proposed by Smart (1975), also defended
by Armstrong (1987) and Lewis (1997), claims that colors are physical
properties of physical objects identified by virtue of the color experiences
they produce in standard perceivers under standard viewing conditions.

Synthese 123: 105–129, 2000.

© 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
106 PETER W. ROSS

Against Smart’s physicalism, Hardin and Clark point out that the color
a physical object looks (or, as I’ll say, its perceived color) varies relative
to perceiver and viewing conditions. For example, visual science has un-
covered a remarkable example of the relativity of color which seems to
present a particularly difficult challenge for the physicalist. Psychophysical
findings show that it’s common for different individuals with normal color
vision to see the same physical object in the same viewing conditions as
slightly different determinate colors. One person might see the object as
bluish green and another might see it as a green that’s not bluish at all.
But which of these perceivers sees the veridical color of the object?
It seems that if colors are physical properties of physical objects, there
should be a nonarbitrary answer specified in terms natural to physics. The
purported problem for Smart’s physicalism is that any answer this view
can provide would be arbitrary (Hardin 1993, 79–81; Clark forthcoming,
Chap. 6).
Furthermore, in addition to relativity to individual perceiver, Hardin
and Clark describe a second sort of relativity, namely, relativity of color
to perceiver type, which they hold also presents a problem for Smart’s
physicalism. In the next section, I’ll further explain Smart’s view. Then
I’ll describe the problem this second sort of relativity poses for it, and state
why, given these problems due to relativity, physicalism is worth defending
as a proposal about the nature of color.
I’ll then provide responses to these problems. Both problems assume
that veridical color must be specified in terms natural to physics, inde-
pendently of our interests. I’ll contend that this account of veridical color
is mistaken. I’ll defend Smart’s appeal to an alternative account of veridical
color in addressing the problem of relativity to perceiver type. According
to this alternative account, veridical color is specified in terms of favored
conditions of perceptual access, independently of any specification of the
physical nature of color. I’ll then address the problem of relativity to
individual perceiver from the standpoint of this alternative account.

2. DISJUNCTIVE PHYSICALISM

Smart’s physicalism is similar in some important respects to the current

standard version of dispositionalism, which claims that the colors of phys-
ical objects are dispositions of these objects to produce color experiences
in standard perceivers under standard viewing conditions.7 Both views
claim that the colors we see physical objects as having are properties of
these objects epistemically identified by virtue of the color experiences
they produce.
 THE RELATIVITY OF COLOR 107

However, dispositionalism claims that the colors of physical objects

are constituted by dispositional relations between physical properties of
physical objects and properties of color experiences. By contrast, Smart’s
physicalism holds that colors are not constituted by such relations; rather
color experiences merely provide perceptual access to color. According to
Smart, descriptions of the causal relations constituting color experience tell
us nothing about the nature of color, but instead, in Kripke’s terminology,
merely serve to fix the reference of color terms (Smart 1975, 3; Armstrong
1987, 39). As Kripke himself claims,
. . . yellowness is not a dispositional property, although it is related to a disposition . . . the
reference of ‘yellowness’ is fixed by the description ‘that (manifest) property of objects
which causes them, under normal circumstances, to be seen as yellow (i.e., to be sensed by
certain visual impressions)’. (Kripke 1972, 140, n. 71)

Visual science shows that the physical properties epistemically identi-

fied by color experience are quite odd from a physical standpoint. As it
turns out, for each determinate perceived color, such as turquoise or teal,
a disjunction of physical properties look that color to the same perceiver
in the same viewing conditions. I’ll say that each determinate perceived
color is realized by a disjunction of physical properties. Physically dis-
tinct properties that are perceived as the same determinate color are called
metamers.
Since determinate perceived colors are multiply realizable in this way,
Smart’s view is committed to the position that determinate perceived colors
are disjunctions of physical properties. Thus, while Smart’s physicalism
claims that surface colors are reflectance properties, it claims they are
reflectance properties in the sense that they are disjunctions of physically
different reflectance properties. I’ll call this version of physicalism dis-
junctive physicalism, and I’ll call the disjunctive physical properties this
proposal specifies as the constituting nature of color physical colors.8
Another version of physicalism, which has been defended by Hilbert
(1987, chapters 5–6), holds that surface colors are reflectance properties
in a different sense. According to this view, surface colors are reflec-
tance properties in the sense that surface colors are individuated as finely
as reflectance properties. I’ll call this alternative version of physicalism
nondisjunctive physicalism.9
Both versions of physicalism have their distinctive problems. A prob-
lem for nondisjunctive physicalism, which I take to be insuperable, is that
since each determinate perceived color, such as turquoise or teal, is real-
ized by a disjunction of physical properties, the claim that surface colors
are nondisjunctive physical properties is not a proposal about turquoise or
teal.10 Assuming that a theory about the constituting nature of color should
108 PETER W. ROSS

be a proposal about turquoise and teal, I’ll defend the disjunctive version
of physicalism.
However, disjunctive physicalism has two serious problems of its own.
One problem, which I won’t address, is that despite its claim that de-
terminate perceived colors are disjunctive, we certainly don’t experience
colors as disjunctive.11 A second problem, which will be my focus, is that
disjunctive physicalism can’t adequately characterize veridical color.

3. RELATIVITY TO PERCEIVER TYPES AND INDIVIDUALS

Disjunctive physicalism purportedly has difficulties in characterizing

veridical color due to two sorts of relativity. In addition to problems arising
from the relativity of color to individual perceiver, disjunctive physicalism
faces difficulties in characterizing veridical color relative to perceiver type.
In order to describe these two sorts of relativity, I’ll distinguish between
two sorts of attribution of perceived colors to physical objects, namely, the
attribution of transient colors and that of standing colors.12
The transient color of an object is its perceived color relative to variable
particular perceivers and viewing conditions. So, for example, an object
that looks turquoise in one sort of lighting, then teal in another, changes
transient color.
When we describe the color of an object, we usually do so in terms of
its standing color. An object’s standing color is its transient color relative
to some specified types of perceiver and viewing conditions. If the object
looks turquoise relative to these specified types of perceiver and viewing
conditions, its standing color remains turquoise even if it looks teal relative
to perceivers or viewing conditions that aren’t subsumed by the specified
types.
Since a physical object can look grossly different colors depending on
the type of perceiver (for example, a red-green color blind human perceiver
as opposed to a normal human perceiver) and viewing conditions (for
example, involving different lighting), a notion of veridical color is as-
sumed in our ordinary verbal attributions of color. This ordinary notion of
veridical color is just a kind of standing color, namely, transient color rel-
ative to standard perceivers and standard viewing conditions, where these
standards simply specify certain favored conditions of perceptual access
and so are determined by our interests. Disjunctive physicalism attempts
to capture our ordinary notion of veridical color, and so also characterizes
veridical color as transient color relative to standards.
Hardin (1990, 560–564; 1993, 67–82) argues that this characterization
of veridical color relative to pragmatically determined standards presents
 THE RELATIVITY OF COLOR 109

a problem for Smart’s physicalism.13 He claims that if physicalism is true,

there must be a specification of veridical color in terms natural to physics,
independently of our interests.
However, Hardin’s argument assumes a mistaken account of veridical
color. I’ll respond to it by defending the disjunctive physicalist’s alternative
account in terms of favored perceptual access. But before I do, I’ll give
some reasons for thinking that physicalism is worth defending in the first
place.

4. WHY PHYSICALISM IS WORTH DEFENDING

At the very least, the relativity of color – most strikingly the relativity of
color to individual perceivers – provides a serious challenge to the view
that colors are physical properties of physical objects. Why think that it’s
worth the trouble of defending this view?
Setting aside the distinction between its disjunctive and nondisjunct-
ive versions, physicalism is worth defending because it has the following
virtues: (a) consistency with an explanation of our perception of colors as
located on the surfaces of physical objects in terms of colors possessed
by surfaces; and (b) consistency with the naturalization of color, that is,
an explanation of perceived color in nonchromatic (for example, physical
or neural) terms. These are virtues, not constraints. Perhaps it will turn out
that the correct proposal about the constituting nature of color doesn’t have
these virtues. But for reasons that I’ll discuss, we’re motivated to hold on
to a proposal that has them, if we can.
While physicalism has both virtues, each of the other common pro-
posals about the constituting nature of color lacks at least one virtue.14
Subjectivism lacks (a) (or, on some versions, both (a) and (b));15 primitiv-
ism and impressionism, as well as the standard version of dispositionalism,
lack (b).
Subjectivism lacks (a) because it claims that perceived colors are men-
tal properties, processes, or events. Therefore, it must explain how we
perceive colors as located on the surfaces of physical objects even though
surfaces are colorless.
Furthermore, we’re motivated to hold a proposal about the constituting
nature of color that has (a) because there’s currently no plausible way to
explain our perception of colors as located on the surfaces of objects except
in terms of colors possessed by surfaces. The subjectivist’s options for
alternatives seem to be limited to either a sense datum theory of perception,
which holds that colors are properties of mental objects, namely, sense
data, or a projectivist theory color perception, which holds that colors are
110 PETER W. ROSS

mental processes or events, rather than mental properties of sense data,

and are attributed to mind-independent objects. However, neither of these
options is promising.
The projectivist theory hasn’t faced the mortal criticism directed at the
sense datum theory,16 but this is perhaps largely because projectivism (at
least with relation to color perception) simply hasn’t undergone intense
scrutiny. The projectivist avoids the sense datum theorist’s commitment
to mental objects by claiming that colors are mental processes or events
rather than properties of mental objects. But in doing so, the projectivist
takes on the problem of explaining how we experience mental processes
or events as properties of mind-independent objects. Assuming that the
spatial properties we visually experience are physical spatial properties,
the projectivist must hold that we experience mental processes or events
and physical spatial properties together. However, there’s currently no
plausible explanation of how we experience mental processes or events,
presumably located in our heads, as being in physical locations outside of
our heads.17
Primitivism and impressionism lack (b) because both hold that colors
are sui generis properties of physical objects, and thus are not explainable
in nonchromatic terms. The current standard version of dispositionalism
also lacks virtue (b) because it holds that colors are constituted by dis-
positional relations between physical properties of physical objects and
color qualia, where color qualia are mental qualitative properties of visual
experiences which are what it’s like to be conscious of color.18 Such mental
qualitative properties supervene on neural processes or events but cannot
be explained in neural, or any nonqualitative, terms.
Nevertheless, we shouldn’t accept that the colors we perceive physical
objects as having are a mystery from a physical standpoint unless we have
good reason to. We simply can’t stand pat with the claim that colors are
so mysterious without compelling reasons. Of course, dispositionalists,
primitivists, impressionists, and some subjectivists offer reasons to hold
that perceived color can’t be naturalized. Nevertheless, the burden is on
these theorists to show that color physicalism, as a version of naturalism,
can’t work, and the physicalist is motivated to respond to such reasons.
Thus, physicalism is worth defending. I defend disjunctive physicalism
because, for reasons I’ve mentioned, I don’t think that the nondisjunctive
version is plausible. In what follows, I won’t attempt to show that dis-
junctive physicalism is correct, for I won’t address all objections to it. In
particular, I won’t address objections holding that perceived colors can’t be
naturalized.19 Rather, I’ll focus on Hardin’s and Clark’s objections which
don’t oppose naturalization as such, but rather oppose naturalization in
 THE RELATIVITY OF COLOR 111

terms of physical properties of physical objects, due to problems arising

out of the relativity of color. I’ll argue that as far as these problems are
concerned, physicalism still stands as a tenable theory of the constituting
nature of color.

5. COLOR CONTENT AND PERCEPTUAL ACCESS

According to disjunctive physicalism, we must draw a sharp distinction

between the physical nature of color and our perceptual access to color
in virtue of color experiences. A proposal about the constituting nature
of color answers the question: are the colors that we attribute to physical
objects mental properties, processes, or events, physical properties, dispo-
sitions, or sui generis properties? The current debate about color primarily
has to do with choosing among these views.
By contrast, a theory about our perceptual access to color in virtue of
our color experiences answers the questions: how do we characterize these
perceptual states? My defense of disjunctive physicalism will assume a
characterization of visual experiences along the lines of the intentional
theory of perception.
Intentionalism is usually described as holding that perceptual experi-
ences are intentional states which have no qualitative properties apart from
those that they represent. Thus, it holds that the qualitative aspects of per-
ceptual experience, such as the colors and tastes that we are conscious
of in perception, are not constituted by mental qualitative properties of
experience itself (such as qualia) but rather by properties included only in
the representational contents20 of experience.21 However, this claim about
the nature of visual experiences doesn’t rule out the epistemic claim that
properties of visual experiences of color, apart from the colors that are
represented in contents, are important in determining perceptual access to
physical colors.
According to intentionalism, visual experiences, like other representa-
tional states, can be described as involving both a content and a mental act.
A characterization of the content specifies the constituting nature of the
color properties the state represents. A characterization of the mental act
describes a complex causal relation. The mental acts of visual experiences
are causal relations among physical properties of objects, properties of
perceivers’ visual systems, other mental states and behavior.
In line with this distinction between the content and the mental act
of visual experiences, disjunctive physicalism distinguishes between the
physical colors included in contents and the causal relation between phys-
ical colors and properties of perceivers’ visual systems, in virtue of which
112 PETER W. ROSS

we have perceptual access to physical colors. This view holds that transient
colors are physical colors as picked out by reference-fixing descriptions of
such causal relations.
Nonphysicalist proposals claim that differences in an object’s transient
colors always involve differences in properties held to be constitutive of
the nature of color, for example, mental properties or processes, or sui
generis properties. Physicalism, by contrast, generally can’t account for
differences in an object’s transient colors in terms of differences in physical
properties of the object since most differences in transient colors are not
due to differences in these physical properties. Physicalism must instead
account for differences in an object’s transient colors in terms of differ-
ences in perceptual access to the same physical color in virtue of different
color experiences.22
It is intuitive that differences in transient color must be explained in
terms of perceptual access to differences in properties constitutive of the
nature of color, as opposed to differences in perceptual access to the same
physical color. Furthermore, due to this intuitive claim, the physicalist’s
notion of physical color seems prima facie to be mistaken. It seems that
since an object’s transient color can differ while its reflectance property
remains unchanged, this reflectance property is not what’s perceived as
color. Rather, it seems that what the physicalist calls physical color is just
the physical stimulus of visual experience of color, and the constituting
nature of color must involve properties apart from this physical stimulus
(Hardin 1993, 64–66; Clark forthcoming, chapter 6)).
However, this intuitive claim rests on the assumption that differences
in transient color inform us of differences in properties constitutive of the
nature of color. Physicalism holds, to the contrary, that descriptions of the
causal relations of color experiences merely serve to fix the reference of
color terms. Thus, ordinary visual experience tells us nothing about these
constituting properties. And in this case, differences in transient colors
need not be explained in terms of perceptual access to differences in prop-
erties constitutive of the nature of color. Rather, these differences can be
explained in terms of differences in perceptual access to the same physical
color.
But if the difference between an object looking red in one lighting and
brown in another is simply a difference in perceptual access to the same
physical color, which perceptual access is veridical? Is the object red or
brown? I’ll now turn to a defense of a characterization of veridical color in
terms of favored conditions of perceptual access.
 THE RELATIVITY OF COLOR 113

6. RELATIVITY TO STANDARDS

6.1. The Constitutional Model of Veridical Color

Hardin (1983; 1990, 560–564; 1993, 67–82) presents an influential argu-
ment against realist proposals which characterize the veridical colors of
physical objects as relative to standards.23 Hardin’s target is disposition-
alism, but because disjunctive physicalism is also a realist view which
characterizes the veridical colors of physical objects in terms of standards,
disjunctive physicalism is vulnerable to the same objection. I’ll call this
combination of views exposed to Hardin’s attack standardizing realism.
Hardin argues as follows.24 Any physical object looks grossly differ-
ent transient colors relative to different types of perceivers and different
viewing conditions. But if colors are properties of physical objects, as stan-
dardizing realists claim, then there must be a principled characterization of
each object’s veridical color.
Although Hardin isn’t fully explicit about precisely what a principled
characterization of veridical color would be, he is clear that it is not foun-
ded on the interests of those making color attributions. Rather, Hardin
indicates, a principled characterization of veridical color must be spec-
ified in terms of the constituting nature of color, independently of our
interests. So, for example, for a physicalist proposal, a principled account
of veridical color must be given in terms natural to physics, independently
of our interests. If the physicalist were to give such an account, we would
have a physically principled specification of each object’s veridical color.
On the basis of this physically principled specification we would then
be able to state the conditions of perceptual access in which we see its
veridical color, and thus determine for each object which of its transient
colors is its veridical color.
I’ll call this model of characterizing veridical color the constitutional
model of veridical color. It is natural to assume that veridical color must fit
this constitutional model. We naturally look to a characterization of a prop-
erty such as veridical shape for guidance in characterizing veridical color,
and veridical shape does seem to fit the constitutional model. It seems that
for each object, we do have an account of its veridical shape in terms of
the physical nature of shape, independently of our interests. On the basis
of this specification, we can state the conditions of perceptual access in
which we see the veridical shapes of objects (Hardin 1993, 111–112).25
However, standardizing realism’s characterization of veridical color
clearly does not fit the constitutional model. For standardizing realism
characterizes veridical color in terms of pragmatically determined stan-
dards. Indeed, its characterization of veridical color has nothing to do with
114 PETER W. ROSS

any specification of the constituting nature of color at all. Assuming the

constitutional model is the correct model, Hardin seems to have shown
that standardizing realism is fatally flawed.26

6.2. The Favored Access Model of Veridical Color

However, of course, the standardizing realist may respond to Hardin’s ar-
gument by rejecting the constitutional model and proposing a different one.
And, in fact, this is precisely what the disjunctive physicalist does.
Disjunctive physicalism proposes what I’ll call a favored access model
of veridical color, which characterizes veridical color in terms of favored
conditions of perceptual access, independently of any specification of the
constituting nature of color. According to this model, an object’s veridical
color is its transient color relative to certain favored perceptual conditions –
for example, relative to standard perceivers under standard viewing condi-
tions. An illusory color is a transient color relative to perceptual conditions
that aren’t favored.
Furthermore, this model is consistent with a physicalist view because
the physicalist draws a sharp distinction between the physical nature of
color and our perceptual access to color. According to disjunctive phys-
icalism, transient colors are physical properties of physical objects as
picked out by a description of perceptual access. Since this view holds that
veridical colors just are transient colors – namely, transient colors relative
to favored perceptual access. Veridical colors are also physical properties
of physical objects as picked out by a description of perceptual access.27
Although it’s intuitive that we must characterize veridical color in
terms of the constituting nature of color, disjunctive physicalism rejects
this intuition. As we’ve already seen, physicalism claims that we can
explain differences in an object’s transient color in terms of differences
in perceptual access, independently of differences in the physical nature
of color. Disjunctive physicalism, as a version of standardizing realism,
adds that an object’s veridical color is its transient color relative to cer-
tain favored conditions of perceptual access, and so characterizes veridical
color independently of any specification of the physical nature of color.

6.3. Hardin’s Arguments for the Constitutional Model

In response to disjunctive physicalism’s proposal of a favored access
model, Hardin suggests reasons to believe that we must characterize
veridical color in terms of the constituting nature of color and so accept
the constitutional model.28
First, one might hold that veridical colors are real colors while illusory
colors are unreal and so have a different constituting nature. Hardin sug-
 THE RELATIVITY OF COLOR 115

gests this claim by sometimes referring to the distinction between veridical

and illusory colors as the distinction between real and illusory colors
(Hardin 1990, 560–561). In this case, the epistemic distinction between
veridical and illusory color corresponds with a metaphysical distinction,
and any proposal about the constituting nature of color must give an
account of veridical color in terms of this nature.
But it’s a mistake to assimilate the epistemic distinction between
veridical and illusory colors with a metaphysical distinction between real
and unreal colors. As a subjectivist, Hardin claims that all transient col-
ors are real mental processes or events incorrectly attributed to physical
objects. Referring to this supposed incorrect attribution as illusion, Hardin
claims that all transient colors are illusory in a sense that corresponds with
his metaphysical claim about colors.
The disjunctive physicalist, by contrast, has the problem of distinguish-
ing between the veridical and illusory transient colors of physical objects.
However, according to the disjunctive physicalist, it’s a mistake to think
that this epistemic distinction corresponds with a metaphysical one. The
illusory colors of physical objects are just transient colors – and so are
real physical properties of objects – deemed nonveridical because they are
relative to disfavored conditions of perceptual access.
Hardin’s argument against standardizing realists provides a second
reason for rejecting a pragmatic account of veridical color. If colors really
are properties of physical objects, then it seems that each object has a
single veridical color. The problem with standardizing realism is that it
cannot provide any principled characterization of veridical color such that
we would be able to determine for each object which of its transient colors
is its veridical color.29
But why believe that if colors are properties of physical objects each
object must have a single veridical color? A physical object looks red in
one kind of lighting and brown in another. Which of these transient colors
is deemed veridical, and thus what color we say the object is, merely
reflects our interests. Furthermore, our interests can change. If they do
change, so that, for example, veridical colors are transient colors relative to
illumination under mercury-vapor lamps, objects that had been called red
would be called brown. These objects would merely look red in ordinary
daylight or under ordinary indoor lighting. Thus, the same physical object
can have different veridical colors – it can have different veridical colors
relative to different interests.30
This objection is similar to the first in claiming that veridical colors
ought to be metaphysically distinctive. An idea that might underlie this
claim is that an instance of transient red that’s called veridical (because it’s
116 PETER W. ROSS

experienced by a standard perceiver under standard viewing conditions)

and one that’s called illusory (due to, for example, unusual lighting) look
the same. For Hardin, who’s a subjectivist, all instances of transient red
have the same constituting nature; they are the same mental process or
event. Although he claims that all experiences of red physical objects are
illusory in the sense that physical objects don’t have colors, at the same
time, there’s a sense in which all experiences of red are veridical – they are
themselves correctly described as involving the mental process or event
identified with red. In this case, Hardin claims that all experiences of red
are veridical in a sense that corresponds with his metaphysical claim about
the property red.
However, the disjunctive physicalist, who must distinguish between
the veridical and illusory colors of physical objects, seems to have no
metaphysical reason to favor instances of transient red called veridical
over those called illusory. And indeed the disjunctive physicalist agrees
that these colors have the same constituting nature, for they are all phys-
ical properties. But the disjunctive physicalist claims that the distinction
between veridical and illusory colors isn’t a metaphysical distinction at
all, but rather an epistemic and pragmatic one.

6.4. The Relativity of Color Categories

Hardin offers another argument specifically against physicalism founded
on the scientific discovery that color categories are relative to perceiver
types. Our ordinary color categories are the categories by which we clas-
sify colors as qualitatively identical or different, and qualitatively similar
or dissimilar. These categories are perspicuously represented in what’s
called the psychological color space, a three dimensional space, with di-
mensions of hue, saturation and lightness. Every determinate shade of
color (such as turquoise or teal) is represented by a point in the color space.
Also, relations of qualitative similarity and difference are represented by
distances in the space; for example, that turquoise is qualitatively more
similar to teal than crimson is represented by turquoise being closer to teal
than crimson.
Findings from visual science show that there is no range of phys-
ical properties that naturally maps onto the categorical structure of the
psychological color space. For example, visual science shows that each
determinate color, such as turquoise, is realized by a disjunction of meta-
mers, or physically distinct objects. Thus, turquoise is not a physical kind
in the way that gold is a physical kind (identified by its atomic number).31
Furthermore, neural processes of our visual systems explain meta-
merism. Normal human visual systems have three types of wavelength-
 THE RELATIVITY OF COLOR 117

sensitive retinal cells called cones, and thus are trichromatic. Any two
lights that have an identical effect on our three types of cones will be
identical in appearance (Cornsweet 1970, 170–172). A disjunction of phys-
ically different properties look teal because a disjunction of such properties
have an identical effect on our cones, and this effect encodes teal.
The neural explanation of metamerism indicates that our ordinary color
categories correspond with and are explained by certain neural processes of
our trichromatic visual systems.32 Furthermore, color blind perceivers with
fewer than three functioning cone types have different color categories
(and therefore different psychological color spaces). Thus, color categories
are relative to perceiver types.33
Hardin (1993, 66) and McGilvray (1994, 202–203) offer the following
argument both against physicalism and in favor of a version of subjectivism
which claims that colors are mental processes or events which are identi-
fied with neural processes or events. Visual science shows that determinate
colors aren’t physical kinds, but rather that our ordinary color categories
correspond with and are explained by certain neural processes. Assuming
that colors are identified with a range of properties which corresponds with
and explains our ordinary color categories, colors cannot be identified with
physical properties of physical objects, but rather are identified with neural
processes.
The disjunctive physicalist response, however, is to reject this
assumption.34 For this theorist claims that neural processes are an aspect
of perceptual access, and thus distinguishes the constituting nature of color
from an account of perceptual access to color in virtue of certain neural
processes. For example, Smart claims:
. . . the disjunction of physical properties which is the physical property of greenness seems
to be a very disjunctive and idiosyncratic physical property. We single it out only because of
certain highly complex facts about the human eye and nervous system. This is because in-
finitely many different mixtures of light of various wavelengths and intensities can produce
the same discriminatory response. (Smart 1975, 3)

By distinguishing between the constituting nature of color and our percep-

tual access to it in virtue of neural processes of our visual systems, we
can allow that while the same neural process gives us perceptual access to
a disjunction of physical properties experienced as the same determinate
color, the transient colors that we attribute to physical objects aren’t them-
selves neural processes. Rather, transient colors are the physical properties
of objects to which we have perceptual access in virtue of certain neural
processes.
Likewise, although neural processes give us perceptual access to dif-
ferences in determinate color, for example, neural processes give us
118 PETER W. ROSS

perceptual access to the difference between turquoise and teal, the tur-
quoise or teal that we attribute to physical objects aren’t themselves neural
processes. These transient colors are the physical properties of objects to
which we have perceptual access in virtue of certain neural processes.35
Visual science shows that our ordinary color categories are not physical
kinds, but rather are relative to our trichromatic visual systems. However,
we still have no reason to think that the disjunctive physicalist can’t hold
a favored access model of veridical color. Indeed, relativizing color cat-
egories to trichromatic human perceivers is just a matter of characterizing
them in terms of standard perceivers. Thus, so long as we consider neural
processes aspects of perceptual access, characterizing veridical color in
terms of the color categories of trichromatic human perceivers is just a
matter of characterizing it in terms of the visual experiences of standard
perceivers.
I’ve argued that disjunctive physicalism can characterize veridical color
as a kind of standing color, namely, transient color relative to standards.
However, as it turns out, different individuals who are standard perceiv-
ers can see the same physical object in the same viewing conditions as
having slightly different transient colors. Since standards are determined
pragmatically, they are ordinarily vague. Even our precise color terms can
be used to apply to a range of slightly different transient colors. Thus, these
individual differences in color perception aren’t discovered in the course
of ordinary usage of color terms.
How do we determine which of the slightly different transient colors
is the veridical color of the object? If what counts as favored perceptual
conditions doesn’t serve to distinguish among the subtly different transi-
ent colors seen by different individual standard perceivers, then so far as
the favored access model goes, the distinction is arbitrary. Assuming that
disjunctive physicalism must make a determination, it seems that this view
can’t provide an adequate characterization of veridical color.
Next I’ll focus on the problem of relativity of color to individuals. I’ll
argue that disjunctive physicalism can account for individual differences
in color perception in terms of perceptual access to physical color in a way
that avoids making a determination of veridical color which distinguishes
among the subtly different transient colors seen by different individual
standard perceivers.
 THE RELATIVITY OF COLOR 119

7. RELATIVITY TO INDIVIDUALS

7.1. The Scientific Explanation of Individual Differences

As Clark explains, individual differences in color perception can be exper-
imentally proven. A given standard color perceiver might see an emitted
light as unique green, that is, as a green that is not at all yellowish or bluish,
whereas other standard perceivers might see the same light as slightly yel-
lowish green or slightly bluish green. Also, what emitted light is perceived
as unique green differs among standard perceivers (Clark 1993, 165).
Two factors explain these subtle individual differences in transient
color. One factor is the filtering of light by parts of the eye before light
reaches the cones. Light is filtered by the yellow pigment of the macula,
which is part of the central area of the retina, as well as the yellow pigment
of the lens (Hurvich 1981, 113–116). Since there are individual differ-
ences in the amount of yellow pigment in the macula and lens, there are
individual differences in transient colors.
However, this type of explanation of individual differences doesn’t
offer a compelling objection to disjunctive physicalism. Clearly, such
differences in yellow pigment are differences in perceptual access; such
light-filtering effects are no different in kind from the light-filtering effects
of sunglasses.
The second factor that accounts for individual differences is more wor-
risome. Individual differences are also explained by differences among
individuals in the absorption spectra of their three types of cones. Since
determinate hues, such as unique green, are associated with specific ratios
of cone absorptions, individual differences in absorption spectra have the
effect that different physical properties will produce the particular ratio of
cone absorptions which is associated with unique green.36
It may seem that if we can’t explain individual differences in terms
of differences in physical properties of objects, but we can explain them
in terms of differences in neural processes, then disjunctive physicalism
is thereby shown to be false. For this explanation suggests that transient
colors are (at least in part) constituted by neural processes. However, de-
spite this suggestion, disjunctive physicalism cannot be rejected so easily.
For individual differences in neural processes might explain differences in
transient colors in virtue of differences in perceptual access to the same
physical color.
The fact that there are red-green blind human perceivers doesn’t
demonstrate that transient colors are (at least in part) constituted by neural
processes, even though we can explain the inability of such perceivers to
discriminate red and green in terms of neural processes of their visual sys-
120 PETER W. ROSS

tems. Rather, one can hold that red – green blind perceivers have different
perceptual access from standard perceivers to the properties red and green,
which are constituted by reflectance properties.
Similarly, the psychophysical evidence of individual differences, along
with their neural explanation, is consistent with the claim that individuals
are slightly different perceptual gauges of the physical colors of objects.
Due to differences among individuals in their cone absorptions, individuals
have slightly different perceptual access to physical colors. Thus, we can
explain individual differences in color perception in terms of these slight
differences in perceptual access to the same physical color.

7.2. Supervenience and Veridical Color

However, disjunctive physicalism seems to be committed to making a
determination of veridical color which distinguishes among the subtly
different transient colors seen by different individual standard perceivers.
Because disjunctive physicalism claims that the transient color determined
to be an object’s veridical color is a physical property of the object, it
seems this view must hold that the object’s veridical color supervenes on a
physical property of the object, for example, a reflectance property of the
object’s surface. Thus, this reflectance property must be associated with a
single veridical color.
But if disjunctive physicalism holds that veridical colors supervene on
physical properties of physical objects, then this view must account for the
individual differences in color perception in terms of the misperception
of physical colors by some standard perceivers. After all if a reflectance
property must be associated with a single veridical color, those who don’t
see the surface as having this color are misperceiving.
Thus, it seems that disjunctive physicalism must give an account of
veridical color in terms of the physical nature of color after all. But it offers
no such account. Indeed, scientific explanation of individual differences, in
combination with the arbitrariness of any distinction among the different
transient colors seen by different individual standard perceivers, seems
to show that transient colors are (at least in part) constituted by mental
processes.37 If they are, differences in transient colors are explained in
terms of perceptual access to different colors (at least in part) constituted
by different mental processes. Disjunctive physicalism’s strategy of ex-
plaining differences in transient color in terms of differences in perceptual
access to the same physical color seems to have failed.
However, this argument against disjunctive physicalism rests on an ob-
jectionable claim. It rests on the claim that disjunctive physicalism must
hold that veridical color supervenes on physical properties of physical
 THE RELATIVITY OF COLOR 121

objects. I’ll conclude by arguing that disjunctive physicalism needn’t hold

this supervenience claim.
Indeed, this supervenience claim assumes the mistaken constitutional
model of veridical color. Veridical color must supervene on physical prop-
erties (and so a reflectance property is associated with a single veridical
color) if we must characterize veridical color in terms of physics. How-
ever, the physicalist needn’t accept this supervenience claim if we can
characterize veridical color in terms of favored access.
According to disjunctive physicalism, we have perceptual access to
physical color in virtue of a causal relation between physical colors and
properties of perceivers’ visual systems, which is a complex relation in-
volving lighting, the color of surrounding objects, the size of the object in
the field of view, and neural processes of the perceiver. Since differences in
each of these factors of our perceptual access to physical color can produce
differences in transient color, transient colors supervene on this complex
relation.
Since disjunctive physicalism claims that an object’s veridical color just
is its transient color relative to favored conditions of perceptual access, this
view claims that its veridical color also supervenes on a complex relation.
And since disjunctive physicalism claims that veridical color supervenes
on a complex relation constituting favored perceptual access rather than
on physical color itself, this view needn’t hold that a reflectance property
must be associated with a single veridical color. Rather, a reflectance prop-
erty may be associated with different veridical colors relative to different
interests.
Also, if what counts as favored perceptual conditions doesn’t serve to
distinguish among the subtly different transient colors seen by different
individual standard perceivers, then there is no nonarbitrary distinction.
The attempt to distinguish among these subtly different transient colors as
veridical or illusory is misguided. In particular, the attempt to distinguish
them in physical terms is misguided.
Furthermore, the claim that veridical color supervenes on a complex
relation constituting perceptual access is consistent with a physicalist view
so long as the physicalist draws a sharp distinction between the physical
nature of color and our perceptual access to it. According to disjunctive
physicalism, transient colors are physical properties as accessed by com-
plex relations. Since perceptual access supervenes on complex relations,
transient colors do. However, though transient colors supervene on com-
plex relations, transient colors aren’t themselves complex relations. Rather,
descriptions of these complex relations constituting perceptual access – the
causal relations between physical colors and perceivers’ visual systems –
122 PETER W. ROSS

are merely reference fixers, and don’t specify the constituting nature of
color. Transient colors are physical properties of physical objects as picked
out by these descriptions. And since an object’s veridical color is just its
transient color relative to favored perceptual conditions, its veridical color
is also a physical property of physical objects.38
Some recent proposals about the constituting nature of color, in par-
ticular those offered by Thompson (1995, 243) and Johnston (manuscript,
Chap. 5), claim that colors are complex relations between perceivers and
objects perceived. I think their claim that colors are relations gets a funda-
mental point right – that is, that transient colors supervene on complex
relations. However, it conflates the constituting nature of color, which
is monadic, and our perceptual access to color in virtue of perceptual
experiences, which is relational.39
By characterizing veridical color in terms of favored perceptual access
along with drawing a distinction between the physical nature of color
and our perceptual access to it, the disjunctive physicalist successfully
addresses the problems posed for this theory due to the relativity of color.
Although more needs to be said to give a full fledged defense of disjunctive
physicalism, it is tenable so far as these problems are concerned.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am indebted to David M. Rosenthal, Adam Vinueza, Jonathan Cohen,

Dion Scott-Kakures, Amy Kind, Hugh Clapin, Jonathan Adler and Jim
Bogen for very helpful comments. Parts of this paper were presented at the
1998 Annual Meeting of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psycho-
logy in New Orleans, and the 1998 APA Pacific Division Meeting in Los
Angeles. I am thankful for comments from the audience members at these
events and I am particularly grateful for Larry Hardin’s response at the Los
Angeles meeting, as well as his comments on the full version of the paper.

NOTES

1 For simplicity, I’ll only discuss attribution of colors to the surfaces of physical objects.
But I do not mean to suggest that only physical surfaces have color (as is claimed by
Hilbert (1992)). Rather, I submit that volumes of glass or water, and physical processes
such as lightning have color as well.
2 Those who hold subjectivism include Hardin (1993), McGilvray (1994), Clark (1996
and forthcoming) and Boghossian and Velleman (1989).
Both Hardin (in personal communication) and McGilvray (1994, 211–212) hold that
colors are mental processes or events. Nevertheless, Hardin also claims that describing
 THE RELATIVITY OF COLOR 123

colors as mental processes or events doesn’t satisfactorily fit with our experience of colors
as properties of physical objects. Rather, Hardin claims that Maund’s (1995) view that
colors are virtual properties better suits our experience of colors (in this context, virtual
properties are merely represented physical properties of physical objects). (For objections
to this account of color experience, see my ‘The Location Problem for Color Subjectivism’
(forthcoming).) However, in referring to Hardin’s view I’ll simply say that he claims that
colors are mental processes or events.
3 Physicalists include Smart (1975), Armstrong (1968, 1987); Lewis (1997), Hilbert
(1987), Tye (1995), Dretske (1995), Harman (1996), Lycan (1996), Shoemaker (1996) and
Byrne and Hilbert (1997).
4 Dispositionalism has been supported by McGinn (1983), Peacocke (1984) and Johnston
(1992). McGinn and Johnston have since retracted their support (see McGinn (1996) and
Johnston (manuscript)).
5 Campbell (1993) proposes primitivism; McGinn (1996) proposes impressionism.
6 But, of course, this recent development occurs within the context of a long history of
addressing the problem of how color fits into a scientific description of the world; scientific
considerations have provided reasons for rejecting color realism at least since the time of
Galileo.
7 There are other versions of dispositionalism. In the most general terms, dispositionalism
holds that colors are dispositions to produce perceptual responses in perceivers. Different
versions of dispositionalism characterize perceptual responses in different ways. For ex-
ample, prior to becoming a physicalist, Smart (1961) proposed a dispositionalist view in
which he characterized perceptual responses in terms of discriminatory behavior, such as
sorting objects by color.
8 Shoemaker proposes a version of physicalism which, unlike Smart’s version, charac-
terizes visual experiences in terms of color qualia, mental qualitative properties of visual
experience which are what it’s like to be conscious of color. Shoemaker draws a distinc-
tion between the intentional contents and the qualitative contents of visual experiences
of color. He claims that the colors of physical objects are physical properties of physical
objects, and that these colors are included in intentional contents. But he claims that these
physical properties aren’t perceived colors; he holds that perceived colors are what he calls
phenomenal properties, and that phenomenal properties are included in qualitative con-
tents. Furthermore, these phenomenal properties are (nondispositional) relations between
physical colors and visual experiences with color qualia (Shoemaker 1996). I’ll defend
Smart’s version of physicalism because I agree with Smart’s rejection of color qualia.
9 It may not be fair to claim that Hilbert held nondisjunctive physicalism in Color and
Color Perception (1987), for he also claims there that the colors we perceive physical
objects as having are disjunctive physical properties. He calls these disjunctive physical
properties anthropocentric colors (1987, 27). In any event, Hilbert now holds disjunctive
physicalism (Byrne and Hilbert 1997).
10 Hardin (1993, 64–65) makes this point. However, Dretske (1995, 88–93) argues that
considerations about the evolution of color vision allow a nondisjunctive physicalist to
claim that only one metameric disjunct is the real turquoise or the real teal – it is the dis-
junct that it was adaptive for the visual system to detect. Other disjuncts are free riders. But
this argument rests on the controversial claim that the biological function of color vision is
to promote the detection of physical object surfaces by way of physical properties, namely,
particular surface reflectance properties, and thus characterize the biological function of
color vision in physical terms.
124 PETER W. ROSS

Alternatively, the biological function of color vision is characterized in ecological terms

which abstract from particular surface reflectance properties. On this alternative, the bio-
logical function of color vision is, for example, to promote the detection of objects against
backgrounds which may include things without surfaces, such as volumes of water or the
sky.
I reject Dretske’s argument in light of Hatfield’s (1992) and Thompson’s (1995) forceful
arguments for characterizing the biological function of color vision in ecological terms.
11 Actually, there are two objections which come from the claim that colors are disjunctive
properties, the first having to do with the metaphysics of properties, and the second having
to do with our not experiencing determinate colors as disjunctive.
According to one objection properties are universals, where different instances of uni-
versals are identical in some respect, and so can’t be disjunctive; for, this objection goes,
we can make no sense of properties that aren’t universals and which can be disjunctive.
However, in defense of the disjunctive physicalist view, Armstrong (1987, 40–41) distin-
guishes between properties and universals. Armstrong claims that we can make sense of
disjunctive properties so long as disjunctive properties can be explained in terms of ranges
of universals. And psychophysics shows that determinate perceived color can be explained
in terms of psychophysical laws that quantify the relations between ranges of physical
properties of objects and color experiences.
Perhaps disjunctive colors are problematic because we certainly don’t experience them
as disjunctive. This line of thinking assumes that since we don’t experience colors as
disjunctive, colors can’t be disjunctive. However, this assumption itself rests on the prob-
lematic claim that the constituting nature of color is fully revealed in ordinary experience
of color. See Johnston (1992), who calls this claim Revelation, and points out that it is
problematic. I argue against Revelation in ‘The Appearance and Nature of Color’ (1999).
12 This helpful but underused distinction was introduced into the literature many years ago
by Campbell (1969) and, following Campbell, Armstrong (1969). Campbell uses the term
‘transitory’ instead of ‘transient’.
13 Hardin (1990, 556) misclassifies Smart and Lewis as dispositionalists. As I’ve described,
the version of physicalism held by Smart and Lewis differs from dispositionalism by hold-
ing that the colors of physical objects are merely epistemically identified in terms of causal
relations between physical properties of objects and visual experiences of color, rather than
constituted by these relations (Smart 1975, 56; Smart refers to Lewis’s view (1975, 54);
see also Lewis 1997).
14 The only notable proposal, aside from physicalism, that has both virtues is the view
recently proposed by Thompson (1995) that the colors of physical objects are nondis-
positional relations between perceivers and objects. Below I’ll give reasons for favoring
disjunctive physicalism over a relational view of the constituting nature of color.
15 It’s worth noting that Hardin’s subjectivism doesn’t lack (b) ; he offers a naturalization
of perceived color in terms of neural processes or events (Hardin 1993, 112).
16 See Rosenthal (1985; forthcoming) and Hardin (1993, 96–109) for recent criticisms of
the sense datum theory.
17 As noted above, Hardin claims that our experience of colors as properties of physical
objects is best explained by the claim that colors are virtual properties. And this claim may
seem to solve the problem, for it may seem easier to understand how virtual properties are
experienced in physical locations outside of our heads. However, it’s not clear how colors
as virtual properties are related to the neural processes or events that explain the qualitative
 THE RELATIVITY OF COLOR 125

relations among colors, such as that orange is qualitatively more similar to red than it is to
teal (there will be more on such explanations below).
Also, see McGilvray (1994) for a subtle defense of a different version of a projective
theory of color perception. McGilvray claims that not only the colors, but also the spatial
locations we visually experience, are mental events which can be identified with neural
events. In ‘The Location Problem for Color Subjectivism’ (forthcoming), I provide an
extended argument against color projectivism, including McGilvray’s version.
18 See Peacocke (1983, 5) and McGinn (1983, 8–9) for examples of this proposal.
19 However, see my ‘The Appearance and Nature of Color’ (1999) in which I show that
Revelation motivates certain anti-naturalist views (such as Boghossian and Velleman’s
subjectivism and McGinn’s impressionism), and argue that we should reject Revelation.
20 I’ll use the expression ‘representational contents’ to avoid the question of whether per-
ceptual contents are conceptual or nonconceptual, and what the distinction between these
sorts of contents is.
21 As Boghossian and Velleman put it with respect to color perception, “. . . [intentionalist
theories claim] that visual experience involves colour only to the extent of representing it”
(Boghossian and Velleman 1989, 91). For other characterizations of intentionalism along
these lines, see, for example, Harman (1990, 34–40), Shoemaker (1994, 227–228) Dretske
(1995, 34–36), Tye (1995, 105–108), Lycan (1996, 11, 70–72) (those of this group that
hold intentionalism are Harman, Dretske, Tye and Lycan); intentionalism characterized in
this way is also called the “extreme perceptual theory” (Peacocke 1983, 8).
I’m accepting intentionalism as stated to simplify the defense of a disjunctive phys-
icalist account of the colors of physical objects. I think that a more complete theory of
color should hold a modified intentionalism which rejects that visual experiences have
color qualia, and claims that the colors we are aware of in visual experience (including
hallucination) are always physical properties of (sometimes merely intentional) objects,
but which also allows that visual experiences have nonrelational mental colors, which are
identified with neural processes or events. The motivation and defense of mental colors, so
described, goes beyond the scope of this paper.
22 It may seem circular to identify transient colors in terms of color experiences, and –
due to intentionalism – identify color experiences in terms of transient colors. However,
transient colors and color experiences aren’t interdefined in a vicious way; merely the
same description (of a causal relation between physical properties of objects and color
experiences) which picks out colors also picks out color experiences.
23 Others have provided similar arguments. See Campbell (1969, 143–146), Thompson
(1995, 118–120, 246) and Clark (forthcoming, Chap. 6). (Thompson and Clark cite
Hardin.)
24 Hardin doesn’t put his argument in terms of transient and standing colors.
25 But see Thompson et al. (1992, 20–21), Thompson (1995, 200–202) and Johnston (man-
uscript, Chap. 5) for criticism of the claim that there is a characterization of veridical shape
in terms natural to physics, independently of our interests.
26 Although my focus is to defend disjunctive physicalism, a version of standardizing
realism, against this attack, it is notable that Hardin generalizes this argument to apply
to any version of color realism that specifies veridical color as relative to types of per-
ceivers and viewing conditions, even if perceivers and viewing conditions are technically
described in the context of visual science. For he points out that, as visual scientists know,
there’s no principled – that is, interest free – basis for relativizing the veridical colors of
126 PETER W. ROSS

objects to any perceivers or any viewing conditions. So, according to Hardin, it’s not just
relativizing to standards that’s problematic, but relativizing to any types of perceivers or
viewing conditions at all (1990, 562–564).
27 Of course, since illusory colors are transient colors, they also are physical properties.
However, it seems difficult to understand how some illusory colors are physical properties.
For example, a Benham disk is a round disk with a black and white pattern on its face,
including a number of curved black lines. When the disk is rotated between five and ten
times per second, desaturated red, green, and blue rings appear along the curved black lines
(Hurvich 1981, 190).
Whereas it seems plain that these illusory colors are not simply reflectance properties,
nevertheless, they may be identified with some other physical property (just as the color
of physical processes such as lightning are identified with some other physical property) –
in this case, some complex physical property of the spinning disk. Hardin would consider
such a complex physical property to be merely the physical stimulus of color experience.
However, the disjunctive physicalist would consider it to be a physical color.
28 Dispositionalism also denies that we must characterize veridical color in terms of
the constituting nature of color, and gives a pragmatic account of veridical color. Thus,
the following discussion is relevant to defending dispositionalism as well as disjunctive
physicalism.
29 Clark (forthcoming, Chap. 6) also forcefully states this objection.
30 Nondisjunctive physicalism claims that objects do have a single veridical color because
this view holds that colors are physical kinds, namely, reflectance properties. But, as Hardin
argues, there’s good reason to reject nondisjunctive physicalism on the basis that it’s not a
proposal about perceived colors, which are realized by a disjunction of physical properties.
31 Hardin has been foremost in informing philosophers of the physical messiness of our
ordinary color categories. But others have discussed it as well, for example, Campbell
(1969), Smart (1975) and Hilbert (1987).
32 See Saunders and van Brakel (1997) for objections to this claim on the basis that color
categories are culturally determined; but see Ross (1997) for a response.
33 It may also be that there are color perceivers of other species, and that they have different
color categories. Thompson (1995, Chap. 4) provides a very informative discussion of
comparative color vision, which examines differences in the visual systems of different
species; he also provides conjectures as to how to describe the psychological color spaces
of nontrichromatic color perceivers of other species.
However, Hilbert (1992) disputes whether other species have color vision at all. Even if
they don’t, differences in the color categorizations of normal as compared to color blind
human perceivers indicate that color categories are relative to perceiver types.
34 I offer an argument against this assumption in ‘The Location Problem for Color Subject-
ivism’ (forthcoming). I argue that we should reject subjectivism due to problems this view
faces in explaining color perception. With respect to Hardin’s and McGilvray’s argument,
I point out that the falsity of subjectivism shows that we should reject one or both of (a)
the claims from visual science, or (b) the claim that colors are identified with a range
of properties which corresponds with and explains our ordinary color categories; I then
contend that we should reject (b).
35 See also Armstrong (1987, 41), Dretske (1995, 34–38) and Harman (1996, 253) for
similar points.
36 The absorption spectrum of a given cone type specifies the probability with which the
cone absorbs light for each wavelength of the visible spectrum. The three cone types differ
 THE RELATIVITY OF COLOR 127

in their sensitivity to light, that is, they differ with respect to the region of the spectrum
where the absorption of light is most probable.
For discussions of the explanation of individual differences in terms of individual differ-
ences in absorption spectra, see Boynton (1979, 384); Hurvich (1981, 222–223, 229–230);
Hardin (1993, 78–80); Hilbert (1987, 97). Clark (1993, 44) points out that determinate
hues are associated with specific ratios of cone absorptions.
37 Hardin (1993, xxiii–xxiv, 78–81) and Clark (forthcoming, chapter 6) offer this reas-
oning in support of subjectivism about the nature of color. But it can be used to support
dispositionalism as well.
Byrne and Hilbert (1997, 272–274), in a defense of disjunctive physicalism, lay out a
similar argument and reject it. They hold that individual differences indicate that “some
ways of being unique green are also ways of being bluish green” (1997, 273). I think
the only way to understand their claim is by distinguishing physical color and perceptual
access to physical color, and explain individual differences in transient colors in terms of
differences in perceptual access to the same physical color.
Various thought experiments, notably Block’s (1990) Inverted Earth thought experiment,
purport to show that visual experiences have color qualia. Since color qualia are held to be
mental qualitative properties which are what it’s like to be conscious of color, this thought
experiment seems to indicate that perceived colors aren’t physical properties of physical
objects. The psychophysical evidence of individual differences is perhaps more compelling
because it supports the claim that perceived colors aren’t physical properties of physical
objects while avoiding the contentious question of whether visual experiences have qualia.
38 Of course, proving that colors are physical properties of objects is a much more ambi-
tious task, which would have to address other objections to disjunctive physicalism. I’m
merely trying to show that as far as examples of the relativity of color are concerned,
disjunctive physicalism remains tenable.
39 Both Thompson and Johnston also criticize the claim that there is a characterization
of veridical shape in terms natural to physics, independently of our interests (Thompson
1995, 200–202; Johnston manuscript, Chap. 5; see also, Thompson et al. 1992, 20–21 for
similar objections to this claim). Interestingly, they both suggest an account of veridical
shape along the lines of the disjunctive physicalist account of veridical color – that is, as
a physical property picked out by a reference-fixing description of favored conditions of
perceptual access to shape.

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Department of History and Philosophy

Eastern Michigan University
701 Pray-Harrold
Ypsilanti, MI 48197
U.S.A.
E-mail: pross@pomona.edu
130 PETER W. ROSS