Outline of an Adverbial Theory of Colour

Abstract

The theory of colour defended in this paper might equally well be called a nihilism about colour, for I take it to be the case that nothing is coloured, and that properties such as being red are never exemplified. We might call the latter sort of property a colour property, and I will try to argue here that no such properties have exemplars. However, I hesitate to call my view ‘nihilistic’, because I also hold that there is an important species of property that does the theoretical work of colour properties, and whose members do have exemplars, these examples being human beings (more generally: sensing subjects). Furthermore, I call the view ‘adverbial’ because these properties, I take it, are such properties as sensing in a red fashion, which are often named by the use of adverbs in the literature (i.e. the property of ‘sensing redly’). Here I shall offer some positive arguments for my view, before addressing an especially pressing concern, this being the question of how statements concerning coloured objects can be true if colours do not exist.