From: Charlie.Creegan@launchpad.unc.edu (Charlie Creegan)
Subject: Re: Colours - which theory before observation ?
Summary: conceptual scheme b4 observation-terms
Organization: UNC EBBS (NOT)
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 15:27:36 GMT

In article <schiller.726831328@hpas5> schiller@prl.philips.nl (schiller c) writes:
>Charlie.Creegan@launchpad.unc.edu (Charlie Creegan) writes:
>
>>>Red is a concept formed by children
>>>before they are six months old, and it gives a name to certain class 
>>>of colours. When a child says: "it is red", it just says, "it has a similar
>>>look than all the previous things I have observed, which I call red".
>>>The statement "It is red" therefore just compares different observations.
>>>Not much of theory there.
>>>
>>>			Christoph Schiller
>
>>"gives a name to a certain class of colors"?  That is a thoroughly
>>theory-laden assertion.  
>
>No. It is an observation of child psychology, that children do this in the first
>months of their life. But that children who do not speak, or just learn to
>speak, use other names than red, prehaps "djfghgf", to express the concept, is
>not a contradiction. They still have the concept, just the name is different.
>It is an observation of child psychology that the concept of colour is formed by
>the child itself, not by taking over any "theory" from adults. (Btw, which 
>"theory" would that be ?)

Maybe so---shouldn't you say the observation is that children get the
technique of using color words from their own practice, not by explicit
teaching of theories conducted by adults?  But by the time they have what
would count as a "theory" or even a "concept" there is surely some
influence from adult language users.  Children just do need some help from
adults in getting this sort of thing straight.  And BTW what comes at 6
mos. is not the concept but ability to discriminate patches of differing
colors.  And BTW can one "have a concept" without having the concept
"concept"?  :-)  

>>    My 2-year-old uses "green" as a term of
>>approbation (at least, that's the closest I can figure it).  He does not
>>have the technique of using color words to refer to what we adult language
>>users think of as colors.  So it is not "looks" he is comparing.  But he *is*
>>using linguistic utterances to express his comparison of observations. 
>>Only when he gains some sophistication will adults be able to straighten
>>out his conceptual scheme by explaining some theoretical considerations
>>about color-terms and what kind of observations are relevant to them.
>>    He may not yet have an explicit theory (or even an explicit concept) but
>>in order to interact with him you have to have theories and concepts, and
>>you have to be able to transmit them to him.  His (socially correct)
>>observations *will* be theory-laden.
>
>Your son probably is using the *word* "green" for something else than for what
>adults call green colour. 

Yes, obviously, although the grammar of his usage does have *some*
features in common with the grammar of color terms, e.g. he points at
patches of illustration in books, say a picture of a man in a white robe, and
says "green daddy"

What he will learn through social interactions,
>is to use the standard word instead of his own word. But the concept remains
>the same. Transmitting a name does not mean transmitting a theory.
>
I don't agree; he doesn't have this concept right at all yet (he doesn't
have the general technique of using such words).  He does have the
technique of many other concepts and possibly even some theories right. 
The road from error to adequate technique here isn't at all the same as
that in simply correcting a naming error.
     Thus at the minimum I maintain what we have to transmit here is a
technique, and a whole conceptual scheme stands behind that technique. 
"Theory" may not be a usual or adequate name for such a basic and
implicit scheme, but in the case of (e.g.) "electron" I think the scheme
has reached a level of complexity and necessary explicitness sufficient to
call it "theory."  
>
>P.S. Another possibility :  is your child colour-blind ?

No, he discriminates colors; he just has more qualities in his color
universe than we do.

CF Wittgenstein on the difficulties inherent in ostensive definition; you
have to know what kind of thing is being pointed at before you can know
what is being pointed at. Thus a conceptual scheme logically precedes a
particular usage. Wittgenstein probably rolls in his grave at having this
called or assimilated to "theory" but we swallowed that one when we
started using childhood learning as a model for scientific theorizing.

Charles Creegan     NC Wesleyan College
"Go on, believe! It does no harm" --Wittgenstein
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