| In this dissertation I defend an error theory of color, which I call prescriptive color fictionalism. I argue that although our color discourse is false, we should continue employing it as we have thus far but stop believing that color properties exist.;I begin with an analysis of ordinary color concepts and I argue that they fail to denote physical properties (chapter 1). This claim is widely accepted by most color realists, who I call revisionists, since they attempt to revise our color concepts in order to succeed in denoting physical properties. I discuss three such views: the primary-quality account, relationalism, and disjunctive physicalism and argue that they are inadequate (chapter 2). I then consider two non-revisionist color theories, which I call strict and relaxed representationalism and argue that they too are inadequate (chapter 2).;In chapter three, I try to motivate an error theory of color and argue that eliminativism, which is a variation of an error theory according to which color disocurse should be eliminated precisely because it is false, is unmotivated. In chapter four, I take up color subjectivism, which says that colors are mental properties, and argue that it faces two insuperable problems: the problem of finding standards of correctness and the problem of commonality of reference.;In chapters five and six, I offer a positive account. I first consider how fictionalist accounts work in various domains (chapter 5) and propose a prescriptive fictionalist account of color (chapter 6). It is prescriptive because it recommends that we change our practices in order to continue talking about colors (ordinarily understood); it fictionalism because to talk about colors is to pretend that colors exist. By formulating a fictionalist theory of color and showing that we can save our color discourse without having to add color properties in our ontology, I provide an attractive alternative to color realism and offer a viable solution to the general problem of color. |
