Locating the Unique Hues

• Main Author: Keith Allen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Rosenberg & Sellier 2010-03-01
• Series: Rivista di Estetica
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/estetica/1786

Variations in colour perception have featured prominently in recent attempts to argue against the view that colours are objective mind-independent properties of the perceptual environment: either physical properties, such as types of surface reflectance profile (e.g. Byrne and Hilbert 1997, 2003, 2007 and Tye 2006), or else sui generis mind-independent properties (e.g. Campbell 1993). My aim in this paper is to defend the view that colours are mind-independent properties in response to worries arising from one type of empirically documented case of perceptual variation: variation in the perception of the “unique hues”. §1 sets out the challenge raised by variation in the perception of the unique hues. I argue in §2 that the empirical findings are less dramatic than they might initially appear, and in §3 that accounting for the inter-personal differences is consistent with the view that colours are mind-independent properties that normal subjects veridically perceive, at least roughly speaking.