The Qualia Objection: Hellen Keller: The Idea Of Color

The Idea of Color

Bethany Young

PHIL 2003-006 4:35-5:50

Hellen Keller became blind and deaf at a young age due to an illness, this affected her in every aspect of her life. I think this greatly had an effect on her idea of what color was. If she was only briefly able to see color and never actually learned what it was then I do not feel that she had an accurate idea of it. Without ever being taught a difference between the colors and knowing what physical things were always a certain color, such as grass being green, there is no way she could truly understand what a color is.

The Qualia Objection explains how experience is necessary for someone to understand something. For example smelling flowers is an experience that most people normally enjoy except for those who are allergic to flowers and cannot be around them. Both kinds of people have a perception of flowers but only one has actually gained the normal experience with them. The Qualia Objection comes into play when talking about Hellen Keller and her idea of color because it questions her experience with it. Keller was never able to see color expect for at a young age when she didn’t know what it was. Keller’s perception of colors is very different from my perception of colors because I have had firsthand experience with them and she has not had that ability. This lack of experience shows that there is no way Keller could actually understand in her mind what color is. Color is something that needs to be experienced and seen, and without that ability it cannot be properly understood.

Jackson uses a very similar example to Keller’s situation in his “What Mary Didn’t Know” article. Mary learned everything in black in white which is comparable to Keller’s blin...

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...or (Nagel, 1974, p. 437).

Hellen Keller’s inexperience with color leads me to believe that she could not truly grasp what they were. The Qualia Objection, Jackson’s article, and Nagel’s article all have given me reasons to back up my belief that Keller did not have an accurate idea of color because of her lack of experience with it. I think that she was able to form her own idea and concept of what color is but that her perception of it differs from peoples’ with the ability to see.

References

Jackson, F. (2012). What Mary Didn’t Know. In J. Perry, M. Bratman, & Fisher J. (Eds.)

Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings. (pp. 281-284). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kim, J. (2006). Philosophy of Mind. (2nd Ed.). Cambridge: Westview Press.

Nagel, T. (1974) What Is It Like to Be a Bat? The Philosophical Review. 83.4. (pp. 435-450).