THE METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF COLORS

Abstract

(This article is part of a project by Trans/Form/Ação: Unesp Philosophy Journal. It is the Authorial Philosophy Dossier, to be published in 2022.) My intention, in this paper, is to elaborate a conception of colors as part of a skeptical view of the world. In order to do that, I examine how some of the major skeptics throughout the history of philosophy conceived colors, in relation both to other sensible qualities and to the physical object. Next, in the light of the exchange between Barry Stroud and John McDowell, I describe what seems to me to be the common conception of color, which the skeptic not only accepts, but goes even further claiming that he may know the color of objects through sense-perception.