Olivier Massin (University of Geneva)

Vendredi 3 avril 2015 de 11h30 à 13h

Institut Nicod, ENS, Pavillon Jardin, 29, rue d'Ulm 75005 Paris. Salle de réunion, RDC.

Olivier Massin
Maître Assistant, Département de Philosophie, Université de Genève

Title: "Colours as dependent stuffs".

Abstract:
Although the metaphysical status of phenomenal colours is a matter of continuing disagreement, there is a consensus about the ontological category to which they belong. Primitivists, physicalists, dispositionalists, subjectivists, etc., all agree that colors are properties. I shall maintain instead that colours belong  the category of stuffs. Only if colors are stuffs can we understand (i) that colours-terms are mass-terms (ii) that colours fill space (iii) that colours can be mixed (iv) and perhaps, that colours are ordered in a quality space. The grain of truth, in the property-view, however, is that colours are ontologically dependent entities: colours require extension. Colours then belong to the neglected category of dependent stuffs.