And this brings me to the following point: When someone
asks me, “What colour is the book over
there?”, and I say, “Red”, and
then he asks, “What made you call this colour
‘red’?”, I shall in most cases have to
say: “Nothing
makes me call it red; that
is, no
reason.
I just looked at it and said, ‘It's
red’”.
One is then inclined to say: “Surely this
isn't all that happened; for I could look at a colour and
say a word and still not name the colour.”
And then one is inclined to go on to say: “The
word ‘red’ when we pronounce it, naming the colour we
look at,
comes in a particular way.”
But, at the same time, asked, “Can you describe the way
you mean?” – – one wouldn't feel prepared
to give
any description.
Suppose
we now || now we asked: “Do you, at
any rate, remember that the name of the colour
112.
came to you in
that
particular way whenever you named colours on former
occasions?
” – – he would have to admit
that he didn't remember a particular way in which this always
happened.
In fact one could easily make him see that naming a colour could go
along with all sorts of different exper
iences.
Compare such cases as these:
a) I put an iron
in the fire to heat it to light red heat.
I am asking you to watch the iron and want you to tell me from
time to time what stage of
heat it has reached.
You look and say: “It is beginning to get light
red.”
b) We stand at a street crossing and I say:
“Watch out for the red light.
When it comes on, tell me and I'll run across.”
Ask yourself this question: If in one such case you shout
“Green!” and in another
“Run!”, do these words come in the same
way or different ways?
Can
you || one say anything about this in a general
way?
c) I ask you: “What's
the colour of the bit of material you have in your hand?”
(and I can't see).
You think: “Now what does one call this?
Is this ‘Prussian blue’ or
‘indigo’?”