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Colours – Wittgenstein vs (Katz & Bühler)

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Book cover How Colours Matter to Philosophy

Part of the book series: Synthese Library ((SYLI,volume 388))

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Abstract

Colours in ordinary life interact in complex ways with light, unlike the colours represented by colour solids or the “reduced” colours sometimes considered by psychologists. Wittgenstein’s explorations of colours in ordinary life and light are intended to illustrate his view that the world of colours is very complex and displays no system or at least no system rooted in the natures of colours. I look at the relations between what Wittgenstein says about colours and what two great psychologists, David Katz and Karl Bühler, had to say about colours and light. The two psychologists win.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Mathaei, R. 1933 is a survey of the phenomenology of colours.

  2. 2.

    In what follows, I refer to this as “BF”.

  3. 3.

    A second edition of Katz’s monograph appeared in 1930 and an abridged version thereof was translated into English in 1935.

  4. 4.

    The writings of the early phenomenologists about colours abound in reverential references to Goethe on colours. Cf. Heinemann 1934; Lipps 1940. On the importance to Wittgenstein of Goethe’s writings on colours cf. Rehbock 1985; Rothhaupt 1996 158–180.

  5. 5.

    For Husserl’s views about perception, cf. Husserl 1964, 1973. On these views, cf. Mulligan 1995.

  6. 6.

    Katz 1911 p. 21, cf. p. 1, pp. 5–6.

  7. 7.

    Katz 1911, 35. In this section unless otherwise indicated all references to Katz’s views and quotations from Katz draw on Katz 1911 §2 pp. 6–31.

  8. 8.

    PR §66, Z §269; Höfler 1930 §24 defends this view against Helmholtz.

  9. 9.

    Wittgenstein 1975. Cf. Mulligan 1991. On the different schools of Gestalt psychology, cf. Smith 1988.

  10. 10.

    Mulligan 2012 gives many examples of Wittgenstein’s agreement with descriptive claims about mind and language made by his Austro-German predecessors and disagreement about the status of these claims. Where his predecessors see systems of non-contingent truths, Wittgenstein sees only variety and remarks about the way words are and should be used.

  11. 11.

    Katz 1911, p. 6

  12. 12.

    Katz 1911, p. 79.

  13. 13.

    Katz 1911 §2.

  14. 14.

    Bühler 1999 154, 165, cf. Bühler 1929 151–2, Bühler 1922 76ff., 183–209, Kardos 1934. The distinction between a visual Umfeld and Infeld is an ancestor of Husserl’s distinction between the inner and outer horizons of an object. Katz makes a series of interesting remarks about the modes of appearance of colours in pictures e.g. at Katz 1911 p. 23.

  15. 15.

    Bühler 1929 p. 37.

  16. 16.

    Katz stresses that what is involved here is a transition not a modification of colour impressions (Katz 1911 p. 79).

  17. 17.

    Katz 1911 §2, Katz 1911p. 266. Katz’s “reduction” is to be found in Hering 1920 (1905) §4.

  18. 18.

    Cf. Stumpf 1917 p. 7.

  19. 19.

    Bühler 1927, p. 157.

  20. 20.

    Katz 1911, p. 21.

  21. 21.

    Cf. Chisholm 1988. Katz thinks that natural language reflects his categories of film colours, surface colours and space colours (Katz 1930 40–42).

  22. 22.

    Katz 1911 pp. 93–4, cf. Schapp 1976 p. 85.

  23. 23.

    Schapp 1976 p. 24, cf. p. 84.

  24. 24.

    Katz 1911 p. 28.

  25. 25.

    Katz 1911 pp. 80–81, p. 265.

  26. 26.

    Hofmann 1913 p. 49

  27. 27.

    Conrad-Martius 1929 p. 365. For the view that brown is a kind of darkened yellow and an attempt to show how Wittgenstein’s questions should be answered given this definition see Westphal 1987, ch. 3.

  28. 28.

    Katz 1911 p. 267.

  29. 29.

    Rothhaupt (1996 509) quotes a passage from one of Wittgenstein’s manuscripts in which Wittgenstein refers to what is in effect Katz’s operation of reduction.

  30. 30.

    Katz 1911 p. 35.

  31. 31.

    Katz 1911 p. 374. On dependence and foundation, cf. Smith 1982.

  32. 32.

    Wittgenstein 1972 p. 28.

  33. 33.

    Bühler 1999 p. 222.

  34. 34.

    Bühler 1999 § 24, Wittgenstein 1968 §§92–94.

  35. 35.

    Bühler 1999 pp. 221–2.

  36. 36.

    Katz 1911 pp. 31–2.

  37. 37.

    Husserl 1900/1901 II §9, 1950 §74. Katz (1911 p. 4, pp. 121ff..) thinks that colours often display “a qualitative indeterminacy”, and like Husserl thinks of this as a positive feature. Husserl thinks that what falls under a morphological concept displays indeterminacy.

  38. 38.

    On Brentano on colours and mixtures, cf. Hämmerli and Massin 2017.

  39. 39.

    Katz 1911 p. 362.

  40. 40.

    Cf. ter Hark 1990 206, who notes that Wittgenstein is dealing with a question raised by Brentano and that his answer is neither phenomenological nor physical. Schulte 1987 investigates in an illuminating fashion the relation between Brentano and Wittgenstein on green.

  41. 41.

    Katz’s discussion of why Brentano and the painters he consulted and relied on were led astray pays a great deal of attention to mixing colours, that is, pigments (Katz 1911 360–367). Wittgenstein, too, thinks that in order to settle Brentano’s question it is necessary to consider mixing colours (and the language-games these are part of). Katz agrees with Wittgenstein’s claim that “a green is not both yellowish and bluish on account of being produced by mixing yellow and blue” (BF III §158).

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Roberto Casati for suggestions made many, many years ago and to Ingvar Johansson, Olivier Massin and Paolo Natali for more recent suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Italian Switzerland, Lugano, Switzerland

    Kevin Mulligan

  2. University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

    Kevin Mulligan

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  1. Federal University of Alagoas, Maceió, Alagoas, Brazil

    Marcos Silva

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Mulligan, K. (2017). Colours – Wittgenstein vs (Katz & Bühler). In: Silva, M. (eds) How Colours Matter to Philosophy. Synthese Library, vol 388. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67398-1_7

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