Erdal's own novel is called The Missing Shade of Blue, and its title reminds me of this famous passage from Hume:
I believe it will readily be allowed, that the several distinct ideas of colour, which enter by the eye, or those of sound, which are conveyed by the ear, 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 the same colour; and each shade produces a distinct idea, independent of the rest. For if this should be denied, it is possible, by the continual gradation of shades, to run a colour insensibly into what is most remote from it; and if you will not allow any of the means to be different, you cannot, without absurdity, deny the extremes to be the same. 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 canI think I have to count myself among the few here. We can conjure up ideas in the usual sense of 'idea', but Hume is talking about ideas as things that can "enter by the eye," which can only be something like bits of light. And there's no conjuring those up. Presumably he means the experience of seeing, say, some particular shade of blue, but that doesn't enter by the eye, and it also can't be conjured up. We can dream we see it, or imagine we know what it would be like, but we surely can't actually create the experience by thinking or willpower. If we think we can it's because the grammar of color seems to intimate it to us, showing the hole in our experience where it ought to go. But this via negativa is no substitute for the real thing. Experiences are events, and ideas are public. The idea of private objects as something like a cross between an experience and an idea is a myth. But not one I expect to go away any time soon, or as a result of reading this post. And I expect I am being much too dogmatic here, hoping for a shortcut to avoid real work.
I agree - and something like Hume's example has actually happened. Before Spain conquered the New World in the 16th C. and made carmine from cochineal insects, Europeans had never seen that shade of red before. Did anyone notice the gap?
ReplyDeleteInteresting. It seems unlikely that anyone would have noticed the gap, but I think my position is that they could have done so, with the right kind of colour wheel, perhaps. If you have the right paints you ought to be able to create almost any colour by mixing in one drop of white at a time, say. If you skipped a step and added two drops, you might be able to tell that the series of mixed colours got lighter more noticeably between colours x and y, and hence that there is a missing shade there, even if you have never seen this shade. But I don't know how easy it would be to notice something like that, e.g. if you accidentally added two drops instead of one. And if you didn't have such nice paints but were dependent on what insects you could find, for instance, then I doubt you would have much idea that you were missing anything. (On the other hand, it's not too hard to imagine one child with eight different green crayons and another with only two different blue ones feeling that some shades must be missing.) I still don't think that the mind can create anything like the experience of seeing a shade it has never seen. Even remembering colours you have seen is much more a matter, it seems to me, of remembering what seeing them is like, rather than actually recreating the experience.
ReplyDeleteTwo comments:
ReplyDelete1. To what extent does the colour wheel display the possibilities of colour and (on the other hand) to what extent does it arise out of our present understand of colour? Or, to put it another way, does it tell us about the world or does it represent a rule?
2. I think there's far more to producing colours than mixing pigments of various shades. Your watercolour set can contain all the shades you want, but try using them to mix a convincing shade of silver or gold!
Good questions (i.e. I'm not sure/you've got me there).
ReplyDelete1. I think it represents a rule, but it could also represent the world in the sense of "here's what I got when I added one drop of white at a time to my blue paint, etc." But it's not likely to be simply that, because if a shade stands out as being wrong then I probably wouldn't accept it but, rather, would assume I had added too much white, or the wrong colour, or that my paints were somehow off chemically. It's like doing maths by adding buttons and counting them. If you don't get the number you expect then you assume that you have dropped a button, not that you have made a shocking discovery about addition. Still, we could use a colour wheel to get ideas for new shades of paint, say. So it's not a rule that has no connection to the world.
2. True.
I'm not sure either! It certainly does connect to the world in all sorts of ways (that's why it's useful, rather than just a pleasing arrangement of colours), but it's not hard to imagine beings who would find it nonsensical, or have a different arrangement, etc. And this would suggest that their interaction with colour would not be the same as ours. Indeed, what would the wheel look like if everyone was red-green colour-blind? Would we have a wheel at all?
ReplyDeleteIn this respect, the wheel seems to be a sort of "grammar of colour". But it is our grammar.
Yes, that sounds exactly right.
ReplyDeleteSorry, just one more thing. I recently fount this on Wiki regarding colour vision:
ReplyDelete"The Himba people have been found to perceive colors differently from most Euro-Americans and are able to easily distinguish close shades of green, barely discernable for most people. The Himba have created a very different color scheme which divides the spectrum to dark shades (Zuzu in Himba), very light (Vapa), Vivid blue and green (Buru) and dry colors as an adaptation to their specific way of life."
Where would philosophers be without these fascinating tribes?
Very interesting--thanks!
ReplyDeleteI'd like to say more, but I can't think of much that's articulate. My first reaction is delight, then I start wondering what it means to say the Himba perceive colours differently. And that seems like a bad step, turning towards critical or analytical thinking when the knowledge you've (I've) been given should just be enjoyed. But it also seems dishonest or lazy just to stop there. Once the question has come up the delight has faded. Philosophy begins in wonder, but perhaps it begins in the ashes of wonder. Which sounds very glum, but I think if it's done right philosophy, and perhaps nothing else, can get us back. Poking in the ashes of wonder gets the fire going again. I hope so anyway.
For my part I'd say that a philosophy that does not begin in wonder is worthless and depressing. But a philosophy that both begins and ends in wonder is also worthless and depressing. And I think there is a particular danger of falling for the latter in a certain familiar Wittgensteinian turn. (Of which I'm not accusing anyone in particular; indeed, I also view myself as suffering from it from time to time.)
ReplyDeleteCan you say more? I think my work usually begins not in wonder but in annoyance. "How could someone say something so stupid?," that kind of thing. I sometimes end up agreeing with the "stupid" claim, but not always. When I do there's a kind of wonder involved, but probably not the best kind. If philosophy ends in wonder, though, how is that worthless and depressing? For instance, if I think about consciousness, start believing in qualia, and then get out of that belief, couldn't that be a good thing? Even if I still wonder at consciousness? I don't mean wonder without any understanding. But nor do I mean wonder with complete understanding.
ReplyDeleteSo what do I mean? I was going to say: the kind of wonder that Einstein seems to have had at the universe. He had as much understanding of it as anyone, but still felt a kind of awe. But perhaps it's precisely this that you find worthless and depressing. It's a cliche to talk about Einstein, and perhaps his wonder was sentimental. I think Wittgenstein included quotes from Einstein in his collection of "nonsense" clipped from newspapers and magazines. Is that the kind of thing you have in mind?
When I do there's a kind of wonder involved, but probably not the best kind.
ReplyDeleteWell, what you call annoyance was fully part of what I meant here by "wonder", so there isn't necessarily any difference between us here. But I don't think we can choose for ourselves only the best kind of wonder - and that even if we somehow did, that would itself be yet another cause for wonder not of the best kind.
So what do I mean? I was going to say: the kind of wonder that Einstein seems to have had at the universe. He had as much understanding of it as anyone, but still felt a kind of awe. But perhaps it's precisely this that you find worthless and depressing.
Whereas what you called "a kind of awe" was not part of what I meant (what I intended to mean) here by "wonder". To me, it's awe as opposed to wonder, and thus not part of what I claimed to find depressing. But I see now immediately in my initial comment what could have led you to think otherwise.
If philosophy ends in wonder, though, how is that worthless and depressing?
It's depressing because it seems to run against a particular conception of philosophical problems that I have come across in Wittgenstein and found congenial. PI §133 (his own italics, not mine): "the philosophical problems should completely disappear. The real discovery is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to."
Of course Wittgenstein confessed in conversation that he could not always live up to this himself, but I don't think that changes anything. A failing is not less of a failing for being an unavoidable one. ("The real discovery is the one that..." could perhaps be rephrased as "Inasmuch as there is any 'real discovery', it is the one that...")
I'm reminded of your own characterisation of Tractarian silence, which always struck me as hitting the nail on the head: "Not a mysterious, mystical nothing, but the familiar, boring nothing of a blank page" ("Nothing to be Said: Wittgenstein and Wittgensteinian Ethics", p. 252). I don't think there can be any wonder at a "familiar, boring nothing" - or its late-Wittgensteinian counterpart, the view that "nothing is hidden" (PI §435). And yet these are the intended outcomes of philosophical activity under Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy.
For instance, if I think about consciousness, start believing in qualia, and then get out of that belief, couldn't that be a good thing?
This is an unfortunate example to throw to me, as I don't think there is anything wrong about a belief in qualia. On the contrary, when I first found out about qualia as an undergraduate, the term struck me as nothing more than a time-saving shorthand for a bundle of phenomena for which it is very useful to have one.
With the rider that, as Wittgenstein puts it, "the prototype must just be presented for what it is; as characterizing the whole approach and determining its form. In this way it stands at the head & is generally valid by virtue of determining the form of approach, not by virtue of a claim that everything which is true only of it holds for all the objects to which the approach is applied" (Culture and Value, 19 August 1931). For there may of course well be a kind of coarse metaphysical realism that "believes in the existence of qualia" as opposed to "believing in qualia", just like some believe "in the existence of God" instead of "believing in God". That is of course something I deplore and want to oppose.
I don't think we can choose for ourselves only the best kind of wonder
ReplyDeleteI agree.
I don't think there can be any wonder at a "familiar, boring nothing" - or its late-Wittgensteinian counterpart, the view that "nothing is hidden" (PI §435). And yet these are the intended outcomes of philosophical activity under Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy.
If you're going to quote my own work at me then I can never win! I agree that one couldn't really feel wonder at a boring nothing. And I think sentimentality and mysticism are to be avoided. Something like awe seems an OK state to end up in, but perhaps it's wrong to say that this is the goal of Wittgensteinian philosophy. The goal is clarity. Whether you then (or simultaneously) feel awe is another matter, I suppose.
there may of course well be a kind of coarse metaphysical realism that "believes in the existence of qualia"
That's the kind of thing I meant.