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Ludwig Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein (second from right), summer 1920
Early philosophy Picture theory of language Truth tables Truth conditions Truth functions State of affairs Logical necessity
Later philosophy Meaning as use Language-game Private language argument Family resemblance Ideal language analysis Rule-following Form of life Anti-skepticism Philosophy of mathematics
Movements Analytic philosophy Linguistic turn Ideal language philosophy Logical atomism Pyrrhonian skepticism Ordinary language philosophy Fideism Quietism Therapeutic approach Postanalytic philosophy
Works Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus "Some Remarks on Logical Form" Blue and Brown Books Philosophical Remarks Philosophical Investigations On Certainty Culture and Value Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics Zettel Remarks on Colour Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief
People Bertrand Russell G. E. Moore John Maynard Keynes Paul Engelmann Friedrich Waismann Moritz Schlick Rudolf Carnap Francis Skinner Frank Ramsey Vienna Circle G. E. M. Anscombe Norman Malcolm Rush Rhees Peter Winch Peter Geach G. H. von Wright
Interpreters G. E. M. Anscombe Gordon Baker Stanley Cavell James F. Conant Alice Crary Cora Diamond Terry Eagleton Juliet Floyd A. C. Grayling Peter Hacker Oswald Hanfling Cressida Heyes Jaakko Hintikka Anthony Kenny Saul Kripke Warren Goldfarb Sandra Laugier Sabina Lovibond Norman Malcolm John McDowell Stephen Mulhall Colin McGinn Marie McGinn D. Z. Phillips Rupert Read Constantine Sandis Barry Stroud Stephen Toulmin Michael Williams Peter Winch John Wisdom Crispin Wright Hans Sluga
Other topics Cambridge Apostles Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club New Wittgenstein Stonborough House
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Remarks on Colour (German: Bemerkungen über die Farben) was one of Ludwig Wittgenstein's last works, written in Oxford in 1950, the year before he died.^[1]

Overview

Believing that philosophical puzzles about colour can only be resolved through attention to the language games involved, Wittgenstein considers Goethe's propositions in the Theory of Colours, and the observations of Philipp Otto Runge in an attempt to clarify the use of language about colour.^[2] He also considers numerous examples of what we find ourselves unable not to agree to and to say about colours, for example that green is not a blend of blue and yellow.^[3] Here there seems to be an element of phenomenology involved in some way. However,

Goethe's theory of the constitution of colours of the spectrum has not proved to be an unsatisfactory theory, rather it really isn't a theory at all. Nothing can be predicted with it. It is, rather a vague schematic outline of the sort we find in William James's psychology. Nor is there any experimentum crucis which could decide for or against the theory. Someone who agrees with Goethe believes that Goethe correctly recognized the nature of colour. And nature here is not what results from experiments, but it lies in the concept of colour.^[4]

Wittgenstein was interested in the fact that some propositions about colour are apparently neither empirical nor, exactly, a priori, but something in between, creating the impression of a sort of phenomenology, such as Goethe's. However, Wittgenstein took the line that 'There is indeed no such thing as phenomenology, but there are phenomenological problems.'^[5] He was content to regard Goethe's observations as a kind of logic or geometry. Wittgenstein took some of his examples from the Runge letter included at the end of the "Farbenlehre", e.g. "White is the lightest colour", "There cannot be a transparent white", "There cannot be a reddish green", and so on. The logical status of these propositions in Wittgenstein's investigation, including their relation to physics, was discussed in detail in Jonathan Westphal's Colour: a Philosophical Introduction (1991).

There seem to be propositions that have the character of experiential propositions, but whose truth is for me unassailable . . . There are, in any case, errors . . . which must be set apart from the rest of my judgements as temporary confusions. But aren't there transitional cases between these two? . . . If we introduce the concept of knowing into this investigation, it will be of no help; because knowing is not a psychological state whose special characteristics explain all kinds of things. On the contrary, the special logic of the concept 'knowing' is not that of a psychological state.^[6]

Although Remarks on Colour is considered difficult on account of its fragmentation,^[2] his last work, On Certainty (German: Über Gewissheit) is considered his most lucid.^[2] One resolution of this difficulty is that Remarks on Colour is really not fragmentary in nature, but a sustained and identifiable argument against the misleading view that colours are features of places in the visual field.^[7]

Editions

• Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on Colour, Oxford: Blackwell, 1977, ed. G. E. M. Anscombe and trans. Linda Schättle.