Talk:Projectivism

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Projectivist theories

According to projectivist theories, in color perception mental colors, characterized as properties of perceptual states rather than sense data, are experienced as properties of mind- independent objects.

There are two versions of projectivism, which provide different explanations for how it is that mental colors are experienced as properties of mind-independent objects. According to one, proposed by Boghossian and Velleman, mental colors are experienced as properties of physical objects.

But since mental colors are properties of visual states, experiencing mental colors as properties of physical objects involves experiencing properties of mental states as properties of physical objects. Since states are fundamentally different sorts of things than objects, it's not clear that it even makes sense to hold that we experience properties of mental states as properties of physical objects.

According to the other version of projectivism, proposed by McGilvray, we are not aware of physical objects or any of their properties in perception. McGilvray doesn't deny that there are physical objects. Rather, he claims that the spatial properties as well as the colors we're aware of in visual perception are mental qualitative properties of visual states themselves. Thus what we're aware of in visual perception are mind-dependent patches with mental colors and mental shapes. (Although this claim suggests a sense datum theory, McGilvray explicitly accepts an adverbialist theory of perceptual states.) McGilvray claims that projective representation of color involves experiencing such mind-dependent color patches as external to our minds.

But if the locations we're aware of in visual experience are never physical locations, the problem now is that it's difficult to characterize these mental locations that McGilvray claims we are aware of. He holds that we can describe mental locations as external to our minds by way of describing them as points in a three-dimensional visual field. However, McGilvray provides no explanation of the relation between perceivers, located in physical space, and the three-dimensional visual field comprised of mental locations, rendering mental locations mysterious.

What is Projectivism?
Quite an enigma. Seems like there's two concepts which might be related. One concept involves moral philosophy-- Simon Blackburn's name keeps cropping up. A second concept involves philsophy of perception, usually moral philosophy.

Hope someone smarter than me sorts this all out. -Alecmconroy 04:37, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I have tried to improve the article by inserting a bit about Blackburn's projectivism. Its excerpted from a 1000 words I wrote about the view that wasn't going anywhere. I may add citations at a later date. I would like to add that I am not a proponent of the view, although I found it initially seductive. -User:grhodenh 11:53, 18 August 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grhodenh (talk • contribs)

My Edit
I'm on vacation at the moment and I have few books with me. When I get back home I will be able to add the missing citations.

I decided to go for an informal style. I have missed out a lot of the detail and subtlety. I hope, however, that it is easy to understand. Please tell me if there is some part of it that needs changing.

I suggest merging this article with the article on expressivism, since the two theories are so closely linked. If I get some measure of agreement on this, I might try to write a joint article.

Tom Donaldson

---Hume section edit--- I don't have time to edit the entire article, but I edited the Hume section to make it more accurate to what Hume actually said (although I did not cite sources). I agree that the article is not written in an encyclopedic tone. However, I must disagree with the suggestion that this article be merged with expressivism. Although it is true, prima facie, that they are conceptually related, they are nonetheless distinct concepts which I believe merit their seperate pages. Frazerho 17:56, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
 * If by "encyclopedic" you mean "in a manner appropriate for an encyclopedia", I fail to see any problem with the article as it stands. If by "encyclopedic" you mean, as a large number of Wikipedians seem to, "dull as dishwater and lacking all traces of personality", I agree that the article is not written in an encyclopedic tone, but that's fine; in that sense Wikipedia needs to become less, not more, "encyclopedic". 66.60.237.20 (talk) 00:18, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
 * LOL theres not any encyclopedia in the history of the world that would have accepted anything close to this piece. Its not at all encyclopedic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.69.140.37 (talk) 15:49, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

What needs to be explained and why is it a vulnerability?
So the article says: "A bigger vulnerability for projectivism is that it lacks explanatory power over meta-ethics, and instead explains it away. Projectivism may stand to meta-ethics as particularism stands to ethics." I don't understand, what needs to be explained and why this is a vulnerability? It could potentially be a strength: we don't know how to turn a tree into a table. The carpenter comes by and tells you how to, therefore it explains the 'problem' away. The carpenter perhaps lacks explanatory power over why others didn't understand how it could be done, but that's a non-problem. What am I missing here? Perhaps the article could be improved by expanding on this a bit more? I also don't see how it's like ethical/moral particularism. 31.20.133.166 (talk) 19:03, 1 June 2021 (UTC)


 * - the whole article is problematic due to lack of citations - the section, Projectivism in ethics and meta-ethics, has only two sources, David Hume and Simon Blackburn - the article could be a candidate for deletion due to lack of reliable sources - cheers - Epinoia (talk) 20:41, 1 June 2021 (UTC)