Objectivist reductionism

Abstract

© 2021 selection and editorial matter, Derek H. Brown and Fiona Macpherson; individual chapters, the contributors. One might motivate Objectivist Reductionism as an instance of a more global claim, something like the contemporary doctrine of physicalism, that the world is (in some sense) “entirely physical”. But Objectivist Reductionism can be motivated in a much more local (and much more convincing) fashion. In other words, “Objectivist Reductionism” about cragginess is plausible: cragginess is identical to shape property S, a property canonically characterized in geometrical terms. Objectivist Reductionism about colour should be understood in analogous fashion: if there is no pressure to reveal S shape, there is no pressure to reveal general reflectance that is identical to yellowness. As Hardin, C. L. famously pointed out, there is significant variation among those with normal colour vision, for instance variation with respect to which objects appear unique green. In “Physicalist theories of color”, Boghossian, P. and J. D. Velleman. launch a sustained attack on “physicalism about color”, the view that “the colors of material objects are microphysical properties of their surfaces”.