The Red and the Real

Jonathan Cohen is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. He is also a faculty member of UCSD's Interdiciplinary Cognitive Science Program.

• 1. Introduction: The Space of Options ; THE CASE FOR COLOR RELATIONALISM ; 2. The Argument From Perceptual Variation ; 3. Variation Revisited: Objections and Responses ; DEFENSEANDELABORATION:ARELATIONALIST'S GUIDE TO REPRESENTATION, ONTOLOGY, AND PHENOMENOLOGY ; 4. Relationalism Defended: Linguistic and Mental Representation of Color ; 5. Relationalism Defended: Ontology ; 6. Relationalism Defended: Phenomenology ; ROLE FUNCTIONALISM ; 7. A Role Functionalist Theory of Color ; 8. Role Functionalism and Its Relationalist Rivals ; SUMMARY ; 9. Summary Conclusion ; References ; Index

In his admirable and engaging book, Jonathan Cohen defends relationalism about color. Roughly, relationalism is the traditional view that colors are constituted in terms of relations between objects and subjects... Cohen's book provides the most complete and sophisticated case to date that the considerable benefits of relationalism outweigh its costs. In addition, it contains important and thorough discussions of nearly every rival theory of color. Cohen presents his ideas admirably. This is the most important book on color in some time.