Metaphysics of Color at The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University

This past Thursday, September 10, Dr. Michael Watkins and I got to discuss The Metaphysics of Color at the Jule Museum at Auburn University. We explored whether color exists independently of perception and how it shapes human experience in context with the work of artist Anna Kunz, whose paintings and installations investigate color, light, and space. It was great to bring together philosophical and artistic perspectives in this way!

“The Metaphysics of Color”published by Cambridge University Press

This Element offers an opinionated and selective introduction to philosophical issues concerning the metaphysics of color. The opinion defended is that colors are objective features of our world; objects are colored, and they have those colors independent of how they are experienced. It is a minority opinion. Many philosophers thinking about color experience argue that perceptual variation, the fact that color experiences vary from observer to observer and from viewing condition to viewing condition, makes objectivism untenable. Many philosophers thinking about colors and science argue that colors are ontologically unnecessary; nothing to be explained requires an appeal to colors. A careful look at arguments from perceptual variation shows that those arguments are not compelling, and especially once it is clear how to individuate colors. Moreover, a careful look at scientific explanations shows that colors are explanatorily essential.

Find the book here and on Amazon.