Remarks on Colour. by L. Wittgenstein; G. E. M. Anscombe; L. L. McAlister; M. Schattle Review by: H. O. Mounce The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 30, No.

119 (Apr., 1980), pp. 159-161 Published by: Blackwell Publishing for The Philosophical Quarterly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2219286 . Accessed: 17/01/2012 11:04
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Following a chapter on the uses of argument in refutationand explanation are the two chapters of "formal" logic. The first,grandly titled "Propositional Calculus", contains very simple truth-tabletests forvalidity,thoughhere Fogelin, throughfamiliarity no doubt, uses such phrases as 'truth value' and 'truth table' with no explanation. A good test of the worth of such books is their treatment of the material conditional and its connections (if any!) with the ordinary conditionals of everyday occurrence. Here the treatmentis Gricean and this presumably justifiesthe inclusion of the rather technical rules in the firstchapter. There is, however, another argument on p. 131 for the identificationof 'if, then' with '=' which could certainly benefit from applying Fogelin's "close analysis". I leave it as an exercise to the reader to findthe "discount" words and the "hedging manoeuvres" in this argument. Another formal chapter provides the familiar Venn diagrams for evaluating syllogisms. UnfortunatelyFogelin cannot resist giving the rules of conversion,obversion, etc., and compounding these with the doctrine of distribution,a doctrine disposed of by Geach long ago. Truth tables and Venn diagrams are models of clarityand simplicity: to include those other dusty and otiose notions can only confuseand repel the beginner. The second half of the book gives a splendid selection of extracts from works of philosophy,science, theology and law which illustratesthe uses and types of argument. How satisfying to read again Salviati's refutation of Simplicio's views by such an elegant argument. The book concludes with an appendix comprised of Austin's "PerformativeUtterances" and Grice's "Logic and Conversation". Overall, then, an interestingbook, but not one which is going to be particularly useful forhonours philosophy courses at British universitiesat least (some of the American examples proved impenetrableto this British reader). A. J. DALE Remarks on Colour. By L. WITTGENSTEIN. Edited by G. E. M. ANSCOMBE, trans. by L. L. McALISTER and M. SCHATTLE. (Oxford: Blackwell. 1977. Pp. 63+63. Price ?5.00.) Wittgenstein'sremarkshave been arranged by the editor, ProfessorAnscombe, into three sections. Part III, which is by far the longest, contains the material that Wittgenstein probably wrote first. Part I contains his own selection and revision of this material. He made this selection, one assumes, simply for his own convenience. It omits much that has value both in itselfand in throwinglight on the connections between the remarks selected. Part II, which is very short, contains material which evidently belongs to the same investigation but which cannot be precisely dated. Anscombe's arrangement has the advantage of giving prominence to Wittgenstein's selection, but it is not altogether easy on the reader, who during the firsttwo sections in might well have difficulty seeing the connections between the remarks. He will be encouraged to learn that in part III these connections will become clearer to him. Wittgenstein'sremarkswere writtenduringthe last two years ofhis life. He describes them himselfas an investigation into the logic of colour concepts (p. 43e; 188). It is clear, however, that they are intended to throw light as much on the nature of logic, and especially on such notions as logical necessity and impossibility,as on the nature of our concepts of colour. In this respect it is worth rememberingthat Wittgenstein had been led, a numberof years earlier,to change his view of logic at least partly through considering problems about colour concepts. He had found, for example, that his earlier view did not properlyaccount for the impossibilityof a spot which is both red and green. In these remarks he carries his earlier investigation further. He might have been occasioned to do so by a reading (or re-reading)of Goethe's work on colour. Goethe's to work, at least, is referred at a number of places and, even where it is not explicitly

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mentioned,seems oftento lie beneath the surface of what is said. Wittgensteinthought between a theory, as it is foundin physics that Goethe was confusedabout the difference or psychology, and a conceptual investigation. Many of the problems with which he dealt arose, on Wittgenstein'sview, not froman ignorance of fact but froman indeterminateness in our concept of colour and especially in what we mean by the same colour. Wittgensteinillustrates this indeterminatenesswith a variety of examples. A painter uses ochre to capture the colour he sees at a spot in the landscape. But the spot as it appears in the landscape and in his painting would not itself be described as ochre. The pigment in those surroundingsappears differently.But then is the colour in the painting ochre or is it not? In a photograph I see zinc and iron coloured objects and a boy with blond hair. The photograph,however, is in black and white. Are we then to say that the boy's hair, for example, is or is not blond? On Wittgenstein'sview these are not factual questions. They arise because it is not determinedin these cases what is to count as one and the same colour. Wittgensteinmakes clear, however, that the line between the conceptual and the factual, between logic and experience, is not always easy to detect. At the beginning of part II, he considers the statement that in the Tricolour the white cannot be lighter than the blue and the red. For him, this is evidently a statement of logic rather than experience. It is not, for example, as if lightnesswere a propertyof white which could be identifiedquite independentlyof whiteness itself. If there were a word in a foreign language which applied to black as opposed to white then necessarily it would be incorrect to translate it as 'light'. But we also speak of one colour as being lighterthan another where neither white nor black is involved, at least directly. Pure yellow, for example, is lighterthan pure red or blue. Moreover, suppose we are asked whether it is pure red or blue which is the lighter. Can we answer without looking at the colours? It has now become less clear whether we are speaking about a matter of logic or of experience. At this point, says Wittgenstein,we are inclined to speak of a phenomenology, i.e., of something that lies midway between science and logic. Wittgensteinregards this inclination as a temptation, as something to be avoided. "There is no such thing as phenomenology",he says, "but there are indeed phenomenological problems" (p. 9e; 53). His point, I think, is that the problems that we take to require a phenomenology,somethingthat lies between science and logic, are real enough; experience of the world but through they are to be solved, however,not throughfurther a better understandingof the ways in which we classify our experience. Wittgenstein returnsto this point in part III (p. 48e; 234) where he contrastsphilosophywith psychology. "Psychology connects what is experienced with something physical; but we connect what is experienced with what is experienced." As philosophers, our interest in the various experiences of colour is not that of explaining how they occur but that of showing how they are ordered within the range of colour concepts. The order is complex and one cannot at once see the connections. "Phenomenological problems" are to be solved by making the connectionsclear. What Wittgensteinhas in mind here comes out more clearly in his own treatment of particular "phenomenological problems". Can therebe a reddish green,or a luminous grey, or a transparentwhite? In each of these cases one is inclined to say "No. That's impossible". But the impossibilityis of a peculiar kind. It seems not to be verbal; it seems unlike, for example, the impossibility of there being a married bachelor. It seems rather as if the possibility has been excluded by nature itself. Yet neither is the impossibilityof a kind that might be adequately explained by physics. For here we cannot even imagine the possibility that has been excluded. We have something that falls between science and logic. In his detailed treatmentof the problems,Wittgenstein tries to show that this view is confused. The most detailed treatmentis concerned with the impossibilityof therebeing a transparentwhite. Why does it seem inconceivable that white water should be pure or milk clear? Wittgensteinsuggests that this question

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should be replaced by another. To say that transparent white is inconceivable is to say that we cannot describe or portray how something white and transparent would look, and that means: "we don't know what description,portrayal,these words demand of us" (p. 5e; 23). But why do we not know this? To answer this question we have to see what pattern of experiences is picked out by the word 'transparent' and what, through not fittingwithin the pattern, is excluded. Transparency goes with depth; depth with a relation between the colours that lie behind the transparentmedium and the medium itself. Of the colours that lie behind the medium white itselfis of special importance. The white that lies behind green transparent glass must itself appear green. Why must? Because otherwise,at these spots at least, it would not be correct to describe the glass as both transparent and green. "White seen through a coloured glass appears with the colour of the glass. That is a rule of the appearance of transparency". And now we may conclude "So white appears white through white glass, i.e., as throughuncoloured glass" (p. 44e; 200). Someone might still suppose that these are comments which belong as much to physics as to philosophy. This supposition would not be wholly misguided. The facts of nature are not irrelevant to the way our concepts develop. It is not, for example, as if the order of our concepts depends at every point on our arbitrarydecision. Nevertheless the question that Wittgensteinraises does not itselfbelong to physics. For the question is "What must the visual image be like if we oughtto call it that of a coloured, transparent medium? Or again: How must something look for it to appear to us as coloured and transparent? This is not a question of physics, but it is connected with physical questions" (p. 50e; 252-my italics). The translatorsof this work are to be congratulated for capturing in English something of the richness of Wittgenstein'sdescriptions. To the end, he retained his genius for the striking example. "The differencebetween black and, say, a dark violet is between the sound of a bass drum and the sound of a kettlesimilar to the difference drum. We say of the formerthat it is a noise, not a tone. It is matt and absolutely black" (p. 37e; 166). "Imagine someone pointing to a place in the iris of a Rembrandt eye and saying: 'The walls in my room shall be painted this colour' " (p. 9e; 58). H. O. MOUNCE Papers on Logic and Language. Edited by DAVID HOLDCROFT. (Universityof Warwick. 1977. Pp. 172. Price ?1.50, paper.) held at the University This volume (the editor tells us) is "the record of a conference of Warwick in the spring of 1976". No furtherattempt is made to attach unity or purpose to the collection and, having made that laconic contribution,David Holdcroft withdraws, leaving the papers to speak for themselves. This they do, for the most part, rather badly, generatinga distinct impressionthat philosophizingabout language is a very poor guide to using it. Obscurityis forgivablewhen it arises fromthe attempt to articulate findingsthat are too new to be quickly comprehended,or too theoretical to be translated into common prose. The unforgiving temperwith which one reads this volume indicates the extent to which it seems to contain insights of neither kind. The most clumsily written contribution (that by Herman Parret) is also the one which sets out to discuss the finestnuances of natural language. If there is any conclusion to be drawn fromthe paper, it is how lucidly and pregnantlywere the distinctions that it discusses drawn by Grice-the distinctions between logical implication on the one hand, and conventional and conversational implicature on the other. These distinctions are pre-theoretical,designed to separate matters which a theory of meaning might directlyexplain, frommatters which could be expected to stand in a more peripheral relation to the theoretical centre. Parret, however, is impatient for theory,and brings forward an armoury of technical terms. Rather than explain these terms, he