more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
We seem to have a set of colour axes (red-green, blue-yellow, and light-dark). Color naming in different cultures tend to have universal categories based on these axes, with a few derived or composite categories (e.g. orange, purple, pink, brown, grey).
Gist of Idea
Cultures have a common core of colour naming, based on three axes of colour pairs
Source
G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.13)
Book Ref
Edelman,G/Tononi,G: 'Consciousness: how matter becomes imagination' [Penguin 2000], p.159
A Reaction
This confirms my view of all supposed relativism: that there are degrees of cultural and individual relativism possible, but it is daft to think this goes all the way down, as nature has 'joints', and our minds are part of nature.
| 1559 | Thracians think tattooing adds to a girl's beauty, but elsewhere it is a punishment [Anon (Diss)] |
| 1561 | Anything can be acceptable in some circumstances and unacceptable in others [Anon (Diss)] |
| 1560 | Lydians prostitute their daughters to raise a dowery, but no Greek would marry such a girl [Anon (Diss)] |
| 1910 | With us it is shameful for men to wear earrings, but among Syrians it is considered noble [Sext.Empiricus] |
| 1911 | Even if all known nations agree on a practice, there may be unknown nations which disagree [Sext.Empiricus] |
| 5303 | For the proletariate, law, morality and religion are just expressions of bourgeois interests [Marx/Engels] |
| 2877 | Morality becomes a problem when we compare many moralities [Nietzsche] |
| 3868 | To proclaim cultural relativism is to thereby rise above it [Quine, by Newton-Smith] |
| 1490 | You would have to be very morally lazy to ignore criticisms of your own culture [Nagel] |
| 10356 | Relativism can be seen as about the rationality of different cultural traditions [MacIntyre, by Kusch] |
| 4934 | Cultures have a common core of colour naming, based on three axes of colour pairs [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 10498 | Classification is no longer held to be rooted in social institutions [Ellen] |