The power of color

Marmodoro, Anna; Grasso, Matteo

The power of color

Marmodoro, Anna; Grasso, Matteo

Authors

Professor Anna Marmodoro anna.marmodoro@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Matteo Grasso

Abstract

Are colors features of objects “out there in the world” or are they features of our inner experience and only “in our head?” Color perception has been the focus of extensive philosophical and scientific debate. In this paper we discuss the limitations of the view that Chalmers’ (2006) has characterized as Primitivism, and we develop Marmodoro’s (2006) Constitutionalism further, to provide a metaphysical account of color perception in terms of causal powers. The result is Power-based Constitutionalism, the view that colors are (multi-track and multi-stage) powers of objects, whose (full) manifestations depend on the mutual manifestation of relevant powers of perceivers and the perceived objects being co-realized in mutual interaction. After a presentation of the tenets of Power-based Constitutionalism, we evaluate its strengths in contrast to two other recent power-based accounts: John Heil’s (2003, 2012) powerful qualities view and Max Kistler’s (2017) multi-track view.

Citation

Marmodoro, A., & Grasso, M. (2020). The power of color. American Philosophical Quarterly, 57(1), 65-78

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Aug 30, 2018
Online Publication Date	Jan 1, 2020
Publication Date	Jan 1, 2020
Deposit Date	Oct 24, 2019
Publicly Available Date	Jan 1, 2021
Journal	American Philosophical Quarterly
Print ISSN	0003-0481
Electronic ISSN	2152-1123
Publisher	University of Illinois Press
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	57
Issue	1
Pages	65-78
Publisher URL	https://www.jstor.org/stable/48570646