Colour, scepticism, and epistemology

Duncan Pritchard, Christopher Ranalli

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

Colours provide a paradigm example of how one can introduce sceptical challenges to our ordinary beliefs about the world. These sceptical challenges come in at least three forms: the Pyrrhonian challenge, the traditional problem of the external world, and the problem of acquaintance. The traditional problem of external world can arise from the split between the primary qualities of objects and the secondary qualities of objects. Recall that the idea is that a property like being the colour red is too differential in subjects’ experiences to be among the primary qualities. A related epistemological worry arises from the thought that our knowledge of the world is not simply propositional knowledge, or what Bertrand Russell called our “knowledge of truths”. However, as Mark Johnston argues, as far as acquaintance knowledge of world goes, it’s hard to see how agents in good case are any better off than the agents in the bad case with respect to acquaintance knowledge of the world.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationThe Routledge handbook of philosophy of colour
EditorsDerek H. Brown, Fiona Macpherson
Place of PublicationLondon ; New York
PublisherRoutledge, Taylor and Francis Group
Chapter2
Pages42-51
Number of pages10
ISBN (Electronic)9781351048514, 9781351048521
ISBN (Print)9780415743037
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021
Externally publishedYes

Publication series

NameRoutledge Handbooks in Philosophy
PublisherRoutledge

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Colour, scepticism, and epistemology'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this