Why the Ways to Speak of Colors can be Interesting for the Philosophers

Abstract

Wittgenstein's Remarks on Colour (a sample translation of which is published below) are not an attempt to interfere with Goethe's critics of Newton's theory about the nature of colour. The experience of colour perception and statements about colour gave Wittgenstein the opportunity to show the shortcomings of em­piricism in its interpretation of sensory experience, and to develop his under­standing of the meaning as use. Our statements about colours, as Wittgenstein shows, obey a complex network of rules. One could see these rules as an induct­ive generalization from experience or product of our perceiving apparatus, but theirs origins is not so important. What is of importance is their use as rules. The heterogeneous material due to our sensory apparatus as well as to the regu­larity of the physical world is sealed and solidified in the rules of the language, and then lives according to the laws of language