Customer Reviews

The Quest for Reality: Subjectivism and the Metaphysics of Colour

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This text reflects Stroud in top form. Clear. Direct. No nonsense. His methodological approach to philosophical inquiry is "descriptive" and quietist. He addresses several concerns in metaphysics: color perception, realism, reductionism, and subjectivism. The main strength of Quest is Stroud's rigorous identification of subjectivism as a serious philosophical problem. If you read one philosophy book written in the last five years, I would put this one at the top of the list. If you get no further in your reading than the Preface and Introduction (which would be a shame), that alone would delight and serve you well.

The book explores the reduction of colors to physics. The conclusion is that it is not possible to say that things are really colorless without knowledge of what color really is. As Stroud writes it, "you cannot [...] say that you are not talking without talking" (page 67). But, as he notes wisely, this does not mean that it is impossible for you not to talk. In the case of colors, the impossibility of the metaphysical reduction of colors does not imply that things are really colored nor imply that things are really colorless.

The book keeps its focus and does not go further. Or, at first, it seemed so to me. Because after finishing the book I realized that its title, "The Quest for Reality", is much more general. Perhaps the book intention is to show an example that reality---the world as it is independently of us---is out of our reach. But I am not sure, because the author rejects explicitly Kant's theory (page 196).

The book deserves full five stars, but I would only recommend it to someone interested in metaphysics.

The Quest for Reality is clearly and forcefully written, and poses important challenges to the varieties of color irrealism and color subjectivism it discusses. While I don't regard these challenges as uniformly successful, what Stroud says about these topics is engaging and fresh.
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