In a review of “A Perfect Red“, an interesting-sounding book about dyes and cochineal and empire (with the added bonus that it’s not called “The Dye That Changed The World”), Diane Ackerman comes up with this:
Ironically, the reds we relish occur in the mind, not in the world. Apples are everything but red — when light hits them, only the red rays are reflected into our eyes and we think: Wow, that’s red!
That seems to me to be a perfect example of muddled philosophical thinking. No, apples are not, in some deeper sense, everything but red. They are, precisely, red. That’s what being red is….reflecting red rays.
There’s a whole world of confusion in there: that whole philosophical practice whereby there’s no problem until you start thinking about it, and then you get tied up in words and start doubting that there really is an external world, and if there is whether we can ever know anything about it. What Dr Johnson reacted against in Berkeley when he kicked that stone: “I refute him thus”.
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