Tom: A simple list of color *names *does not seem to qualify as a diagram in Peirce's terminology, because it does not embody any relations among its parts. A depiction of the visible spectrum is probably a better example, whether it is a simple color wheel or the discrete (but dense) version that you can pull up on your computer monitor to display two million different shades.
I would suggest that the object of such a diagram is a range of qualities; i.e., real possibilities. Which particular diagram is suitable depends mainly on the purpose for which someone is using it. To teach primary and secondary colors to a child, the color wheel with only six varieties is adequate. Early video games and personal computers made do with a palette of just 16 colors. An artist might not want to be limited to any finite collection of hues, and thus will freely smear together different paints until the result is just right. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Wed, Mar 29, 2017 at 9:24 AM, Tom Gollier <tgoll...@gmail.com> wrote: > Jon, > > I don't know, but your questions as to the parts of a diagram of the > possibilities of "color" and the relationships between those parts don't > seem all that problematic to me. Such a diagram might be rudimentary > categories — black, blue, brown, green, orange, purple, red, yellow, and > white — or it might be extended categories of colors — such as my computer > can display. Or, the diagram might be infinitely divisible into sequential > wavelengths within a certain range. Or, it might be the artist's palette > with different colors and various combinations smeared together. All of > these allow us to identify, distinguish, and/or produce colors. > > The trouble comes with your question about the object. If we mean "object" > in the sense of what is this thing "color" which all these diagrams > ostensibly refer, the question becomes either what is this thing-in-itself, > i.e. the reality, or which of these diagrams is right, i.e. the reality. > Peirce, via the scientific community, seems to be on the side of evolving > diagrams, but personally, I wonder why we bother. Aren't these particular > diagrams useful, real and general enough, for us? Do we really need to > know the thing "color" directly or an absolute, one-size-fits-all universal > diagram? > > Tom >
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