Re: Of colorful scepticism
Re: Of colorful scepticism
- Subject: Re: Of colorful scepticism
- From: Henrik Holmegaard <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 09:12:07 +0200
Colours as we perceive them are not fixed and
objective, they are relative and subjective.
There is no sense (other than the debating angle) to get tangled up
in notions of objectivity and subjectivity which are not very helpful
and certainly have nothing to do with the real ways in which folks
settle discussions of whether two colors are the same or not.
Those who wish to maintain that nobody until this day every truly
'knew' whether two colors are the same, would you please stay home,
because you'll be a serious threat in a traffic crossing -:).
The problem with scepticism is that it discards every and all
criteria whereby we might settle the discussion. But if you wish to
discard every and all actual criteria, then in a very real sense you
are no longer doing what we ordinarily call 'asking a question',
'conducting an enquiry' or 'reasoning'.
If there are no rules left, there is no discussion left -:).
Scepticist constructs are a very common problem in the history of
science. Sometimes somebody manages to pull something useful out of
work that's gone south, sometimes not. But by and large it's better
to plant both feet firmly on the ground where we're all most
comfortable.