ABSTRACT
While philosophers are interested in the semantics of colour language—technical issues concerning the sense and reference of colour words—there has also been an interest in the relationship of colour words to both the colours they name and the cultures and languages in which such words are embedded. Wittgenstein’s views about colour, colour language, and culture are amongst the most radical. It is, for example, quite common to hold a Quinian view according to which colour1 is natural, but colour2 not natural, being determined by culture and language. For Wittgenstein, being a colour of any sort depends upon linguistic practices and is not prior to them. The problem for this sort of resemblance nominalism, for Harrison, is that named colour classifications create demarcations in the colour continuum that are not in it—not a part of colour1. Objections to the “eliminativist” nature of the basic colour term construct have fueled the “colour wars” as Sutton has described the general tenor of dispute.
