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Full Idea
According to the 'respects' view, our learning of yellow by ostension would have depended on our first having been told or somehow apprised that it was going to be a question of color.
Clarification
'ostension' is pointing out
Gist of Idea
To learn yellow by observation, must we be told to look at the colour?
Source
Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.122)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Ontological Relativity and Other Essays' [Columbia 1969], p.122
A Reaction
Quine suggests there is just one notion of similarity, and respects can be 'abstracted' afterwards. Even the ontologically ruthless Quine admits psychological abstraction!
| 191 | Everything resembles everything else up to a point [Plato] |
| 17712 | General ideas are the connection by resemblance to some particular [Hume] |
| 8544 | Hume does not distinguish real resemblances among degrees of resemblance [Shoemaker on Hume] |
| 2210 | A picture of a friend strengthens our idea of him, by resemblance [Hume] |
| 15755 | Hume needs a notion which includes degrees of resemblance [Shoemaker on Hume] |
| 9081 | We don't recognise comparisons by something in our minds; the concepts result from the comparisons [Mill] |
| 5410 | I learn the universal 'resemblance' by seeing two shades of green, and their contrast with red [Russell] |
| 16934 | General terms depend on similarities among things [Quine] |
| 16938 | To learn yellow by observation, must we be told to look at the colour? [Quine] |
| 8486 | Standards of similarity are innate, and the spacing of qualities such as colours can be mapped [Quine] |
| 16947 | Similarity is just interchangeability in the cosmic machine [Quine] |
| 12661 | The different types of resemblance don't resemble one another [Fodor] |