Color Relationalism∗

Color relationalism is the view that colors are constituted in terms of relations to perceiving subjects and perceptual circumstances. It may be useful to compare this proposal about color against less controversial relationalist views about other properties. Relationalism about being a teacher is the (plausible) view that things bear the latter property not by virtue of their intrinsic makeups, but by standing in the right (viz., pedagogical) sort of relation to relata (viz., students). Or, again, relationalism about being humorous is the (plausible) view that things bear the latter property not in virtue of their intrinsic makeups, but by standing in the right sort of relation (viz., the relation of bringing about in the relata certain kinds of amusement reactions) to relata (viz., appropriately equipped sentient beings). So, too, relationalism about color is the view that things bear the latter not by virtue of their intrinsic makeups, but by standing in the right sort of relations to (the right sorts of) perceivers and (the right sorts of) perceptual circumstances. So exactly what, for a relationalist, counts as the right — i.e., color constitutive — sorts of relations, perceivers, and circumstances? Because there is a wide range of answers to these questions, about which reasonable relationalists will disagree, it is probably best to think of relationalism as a view family, rather than a single specific view. Perhaps the most historically important form of color relationalism, sometimes associated (controversially) with great moderns including Galileo, Boyle, Newton, and