Phenomenal yellow

When things lookp yellow to us, we are deploying a representation that is different from all of the representations that we deploy when things lookp other ways to us, different from all of the representations that are involved in nonvisual experiential awareness, and different from all of the conceptually structured representations that science makes available. Let us say that this representation represents the characteristic phenomenal yellow. Now, of course, the mere fact that we use a special representation to keep track of phenomenal yellow could not by itself give rise to an abiding... 

Now let us turn to consider the special case of the characteristic phenomenal yellow. Is it possible to identify phenomenal yellow with some other characteristic, say, C If we are to do so, there must be a way of explaining how it is possible to grasp phenomenal yellow experientially without appreciating its identity with C. This means that we must invoke an appearance/reality distinction of some sort. But folk psychology does not recognize a distinction between appearance and reality in this case. It fails to register the representational character of our awareness of phenomenal yellow, and by the same token, it fails to support any ambitions that we might have to identify phenomenal yellow with another characteristic. 

This completes my account of how representationalism explains our impression that phenomenal yellow is distinct from all other characteristics. Of course, in addition to explaining that impression, it offers a perspective from which it is appropriate to reject the impression as illusory. Unlike folk psychology, representationalism affirms the representational nature of our awareness of phenomenal yellow. 

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