Locke’s Explanation of Color

Abstract

John Locke classified color, purportedly simple, as secondary quality and thereby enabled new possibility to define color as disposition. As definition of color as disposition in contemporary philosophy does not thoroughly accord with Locke's definition and because of disputable Locke's use of the term "color" some contemporary philosophers, among them Matthew Stuart and Michael Jacovides, reject Locke's explanation of color as disposition. I critically represent Jacovides' explanation of Locke's colors as subjective and Stuart's explanation as degenerate powers. While Jacovides otherwise precisely defines color as idea in the primary sense he neglects the explanation of color as secondary quality. Stuart, on the other side, neglects Jacovides' determination of color as subjective and defines it as merely degenerate force or relational property. I claim that Locke uses the term "color" for two ontologically different things, namely color as idea (Ci) and color as power on the object (Cp). This might be, prima facie, sign of the semantic dualism but the precise analysis shows that Ci considers color in primary sense and Cp in derivative sense. Cp is extrinsic disposition of a an object to cause Ci. From this it follows that color is, on one side, subjective and, on the other side, disposition. In short, this thesis is given the name "subjective dispositionalism".