Remarks on Colour

by Ludwig Wittgenstein

Text: English, German (translation)

Genres: Philosophy, Art, Nonfiction, Theory, Essays, Language, German Literature

126 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (Ph.D., Trinity College, Cambridge University, 1929) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.

Described by Bertrand Russell as "the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating", he helped inspire two of the twentieth century's principal philosophical movements: the Vienna Circle and Oxford ordinary language philosophy. According to an end of the century poll, professional philosophers in Canada and the U.S. rank both his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations among the top five most important books in twentieth-century philosophy, the latter standing out as "...the one crossover masterpiece in twentieth-century philosophy, appealing across diverse specializations and philosophical orientations". Wittgenstein's influence has been felt in nearly every field of the humanities and social sciences, yet there are widely diverging interpretations of his thought.

Reviews

[امیرمحمد]

رنگ‌ها برای ویتگنشتاین مهم نیست‌اند. او‌ تنها از قابلیت بی‌حد و حصر رنگ‌ها، ترکیب و ادغام‌های متعارف‌شان، و وفور وجود مصداق‌های خارجی‌شان برای ارائه فلسفه‌ی خویش استفاده می‌کند.

[Eric]

"Can you lend me the Theory of Colours for a few weeks? It is an important work. His last things are insipid." --Ludwig van Beethoven, Conversation-book

"2. In a picture in which a piece of white paper gets its lightness from the blue sky, the sky is lighter than the white paper. And yet in another sense blue is the darker and white the lighter colour. (Goethe). On the palette white is the lightest colour." --Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on Colour

"125. ... There is no experimentum crucis for Goethe's theory of colour." (Ibid.)

"Who has not felt this over Goethe's 'Nut-brown Maid'!" --E.T.A. Hoffmann, "Automata"

[Nat]

Wittgenstein says, "We do not want to find a theory of color...but rather the logic of color concepts" (§188). An example of Wittgenstein's investigation of the logic of color concepts is his discussion of the relation between the concept of transparency and the concept of whiteness. While there can be transparent green glass, or red glass, there can't be transparent white glass. Whereas transparent green glass makes almost everything behind it look green (black objects continue looking black), including white objects, what effect would transparent white glass have on the appearance of objects behind it? It's not at all clear. Another example is the relation of the concept luminescent and brown. Why can't there be a luminescent brown? (I'm not as sure about the assumption behind this question as about the impossibility of a transparent white.)

Yet another example: Is the concept reddish green nonsense? It might make sense if someone used it to describe brown, but Wittgenstein himself says that he finds the concept unusable.

Throughout these remarks Wittgenstein raises questions he raises elsewhere, but in the register of color: is it possible to imagine thinkers with different color concepts? What's the point of saying something obvious, like "we can see colors"? What's the difference between empirical and logical facts about color?

The best moments in the remarks are (1) when Wittgenstein considers the possibility of a transparent glass that turns everything seen through it monochrome, as when one is watching a black and white movie; and (2) when he says that viewing a black and white photo of a man and a boy standing in front of a machine, he can see that the boy's hair is blonde.

[Mariia Lyshen]

33.
"Філософська неясність — болюча. Вона відчувається як ганебна. Людина почуває: вона не розуміється на тому, на чому повинна була б розумітися. А втім, це водночас не так. Ми можемо чудово жити як без цих розрізнень, так і не знатися на них."

Друга в моєму житті праця Вітґенштайна нарешті прочитана. Після цієї роботи мені не страшні жодні літературні крокодили. Вітґенштайн, звісно, пояснює свою позицію, але робить це з якоюсь нотою "От є це, але от отАК!!!!!!! А якщо от тАК!!!!! If white here why white no here??!?!!?", "change my mind". Його зауваги — короткі та чіткі — мають вигляд проб розведеної фарби, залишені в стороні, в очікуванні на створення палітри, яка б стала місцем для цих мазків. Я давно нічого не писала в книгах, і рада, що я повернулася в сім'ю. Такою смішною (і насправді влучною, не лише в гумористичному плані) я себе давно не відчувала.

Людвіґ говорить про людей, які бачать, та (колірно)сліпих, кричачи про неспроможність (колірно)сліпих вийти за межі власного досвіду та розмірковуючи про те, чи можуть (колірно)сліпі грати в ті ж мовні ігри, що і люди, які бачать. Також Вітґенштайн підіймає тему концептуалізації кольорів, їхню протяжність та (поза)часовість, кажучи, наприклад, якщо ми визначаємо колір прозорого зеленого скла через приставлення паперу з іншого боку, то в іншому випадку колір зеленого прозорого скла, який ми безпосередньо бачитимемо, коли дивитимемося крізь нього на предмети, буде сумою усіх кольорових плям, які є на склі. В інших місцях Вітґенштайн стверджує, що суть кольору — в середньому арифметичному всіх кольорів, що знаходяться на поверхні тіла. Із зеленим кольором Вітґенштайн взагалі носиться як Г'юм зі своїм відтінком синього. Це далеко не всі темі, підняті в заувагах, і я б зламала собі голову, намагаючись вижати суть кожної в цей відгук, тож закінчу на не менш важливому факті про те, що видавництво "синтеза" неабияк годує: книгу легко гортати (корінець — витвір гімнастичного мистецтва), колір форзацу — бім бом (вибух на фіолетовій фабриці), перекладачка Анна-Марія Котлярова — генійка. Не уявляю, скільки треба мати сил, таланту та знань, аби зробити таку якісну роботу.

324.
"Чи, може, краще сказати: «Враження — не феномен; в те, що Л.В. має враження, —феномен»?"
*Припис: не знаю, самозакохано, самокритично це чи просто геніально*

[Matthew Martens]

I feel ridiculous deliberating over how many stars to confer upon Wittgenstein. Or upon (some of) the last published musings of Wittgenstein. Or upon a book written by a person. Do the star-blind have the same concept of star-blindness that the color-blind have about color-blindness? I am not interacting with stars, or color, or books, or people, or Wittgenstein. But I haven't invented them either. How impressive I would be had I done so.

[Clara Mun]

La observación del lenguaje que usamos para referirnos a los colores es el punto de partida del autor para reflexionar sobre la manera subyacente de organizar el mundo que nos rige casi imperceptiblemente. A partir de ahí, propone desarmar los conceptos que asumimos como naturales y preguntarnos si en verdad lo que estamos diciendo representa lo que somos.

[Quiver]

There is such a thing as perfect pitch and there are people who don't have it; similarly we could suppose that there could be a great range of different talents with respect to seeing colours.

Remarks on Colours is a collection of numbered fragments, consisting of ideas, thought experiments, questions, and conjectures that probe the relationship we have with colours. Had Wittgenstein lived longer, presumably he would have transformed these notes into a full-length treatise. As it is, however, we have been given a glimpse of the contents and a double opportunity.

On the one hand, we can ponder for ourselves all those unfinished questions left to us. Some of them can be seemingly answered from a purely technical point of view (look at the colour spectrum, or the chemical properties etc), but what Wittgenstein gets at is far more fundamental: The experience of colour is individual and we are unable to transmit that experience (to an alien, to example), yet we are able to share it with other humans (accurately or not) through observing the same coloured object.

That we separate colour for shape is another interesting point:

And what about people who only had colour-shape concepts? Should I say of them that they do not see that a green leaf and a green table—when I show them these things—have the same colour or have something in common? What if it had never 'occurred to them' to compare differently shaped objects of the same colour with one another? Due to their particular background, this comparison was of no importance to them, or had importance only in very exceptional cases, so that no linguistic tool was developed.

On the other hand, our second opportunity is to play the meta-reader. Remarks shows a philosophical mind caught in half-step, calcified at a stage between the germination of ideas and a coherent exposition. The former being personal and ineffable; the latter, present around us in abundance. How often do we have such chance?

Recommended to anyone interested in colour, art, philosophy, the human condition. Some of the questions would be worth posing in elementary school.

A triplet of books that go together particularly well:

1977 Ludwig Wittgenstein: Remarks

1912 Wassily Kandinsky: Spiritual in Art

1810 Goethe: Goethe’s Theory of Colours

[soulAdmitted]

"Una debole luce bianca non è una luce grigia"

Wittgenstein mi ha spiegato cosa penso e cosa dico di vedere quando vedo - quando vedo colori, per l'esattezza -. Poi cosa non penso e non dico. E infine ciò che non vedo.

[Dziewanna]

One of the most amazing things I have ever read.

[dj]

alternately comic and tragic, mostly tragic. there is a pathos in the desperation that drives so much of this writing that makes it tedious and hard to read, but this struggle is valuable to me

[Hewram]

موضوع بنیادی مورد بحث کتاب فوق العاده است؛ به ویژه برای ذهن های جست وجوگر!!! (و این نشان از نبوغ ویتگنشتاین دوست داشتنی است) ولی محتوای کتاب برای اکنون کمی قدیمی و حوصله سربر است و بهتر است بررسی های علمی جدید برای درک موضوع مطالعه شود و نباید انتظار زیادی از کتاب داشت؛ ....

بخشی از ادراک و تجربه ی ما در مورد جهان آگاهی از طریق بینایی است و بینایی به رنگها معنا می بخشد.
آیا آنچه که هست (رنگها یا واقعیت) با انچه که می بینیم و در مغز و اعصابمان *بازسازی* میکنیم یکی هستند؟!!

ما نسبت به کوری مان نابینا هستیم. اما راه منطق و ریاضیات با ادراک (تجربیات) جدا است.

گالیله: «من فکر می کنم این طعم و رنگ و بو و این قبیل چیزها در قسمت هوشیاری ما جای گرفته است. از این رو اگر موجود زنده ای حذف شود، تمامی این ویژگیها می بایست نابود شوند»

[BonGard]

درباره‌ی رنگ‌ها- دلیل نفرت دلوز از ویتگنشتاین را میفهمم. نمونه‌ای مناسب برای آشنایی باضدفلسفه

[Anthony]

"suppose someone were to suggest that a traffic light be brown."
"There is gold paint, but Rembrandt didn't use it to paint a golden helmet."
"Why don't we include black and white in the color circle? Only because we have a feeling that it's wrong?"

quite a little treasure. i'm happy i read this.

[Heta K]

kielipeli liian crazy..
värien "looginen" luonne tuntuu wittgensteinin vanhojen päivien ristisanatehtävältä - joltakin filosofiselta palapeliltä jolla ei kuitenkaan ole kauheasti merkitystä

[Illiterate]

Wittgenstein replaces Goethe’s phenomenology of color - and empiricist theories of ’secondary qualities’ - with his idea of the logic/grammar of a language.

[nyaru]

This might be the most unsure I've been on what Wittgenstein is trying to do here (unironically the Tractatus might be easier to understand), probably should've read this after PI.

My best explanation is that he's exploring the language games surrounding color concepts, or in plainer terms, how we talk about colors. Not sure if every concept should be analyzed like this with PI in mind, or what sort of clarification might entail. At first glance it seems like this contradicts the spirit of PI, but I suppose it doesn't, though on the other hand every series of elucidations would necessarily be incomplete and subject to rapid change as language evolves. The work also references works by Goethe and Runge which I'm not familiar with, which makes it less understandable still.
A *philosophical investigation* into post-PI Wittgenstein might be pretty interesting here.

"295.That which I am writing about so tediously, may be obvious to someone whose mind is less decrepit."

"15. In every serious philosophical question uncertainty extends tothe very roots of the problem.
We must always be prepared to learn something totally new."

"22.We do not want to establish a theory of colour (neither a physiological one nor a psychological one), but rather the logic of colour concepts. And this accomplishes what people have often unjustly expected of a theory."

"26. When dealing with logic, “One cannot imagine that” means:
one doesn’t know what one should imagine here."

"32. Sentences are often used on the borderline between logic and
the empirical, so that their meaning changes back and forth and
they count now as expressions of norms, now as expressions of
experience.
(For it is certainly not an accompanying mental phenomenon - this is how we imagine ‘thoughts’ - but the use, which distinguishes
the logical proposition from the empirical one.)"

"39. I am not saying here (as the Gestalt psychologists do), that the impression of white comes about in such-and-such a way. Rather
the question is precisely : what is the meaning of this expression, what
is the logic of this concept."

"53.There is no such thing as phenomenology, but there are indeed phenomenological problems."
This one ^ is pretty spicy.

"60.Imagine a painting cut up into small, almost monochromatic bits which are then used as pieces in a jig-saw puzzle. Even when
such a piece is not monochromatic it should not indicate any three-
dimensional shape, but should appear as a flat colour-patch. Only
together with the other pieces does it become a bit of blue sky, a
shadow, a high-light, transparent or opaque, etc. Do the individual
pieces show us the real colours of the parts of the picture?"

"63.I see in a photograph (not a colour photograph) a man withdark hair and a boy with siicked-back blond hair standing in front
of a kind of lathe, which is made in part of castings painted black,
and in part of smooth axles, gears, etc., and next to it a grating
made of light galvanized wire. I see the finished iron surfaces as
iron-coloured, the boy’s hair as blond, the grating as zinc-coloured,
despite the fact that everything is depicted in lighter and darker
tones of the photographic paper."
I found this interesting because when looking at a black and white photo I don't fill in the color myself, I just see it as black and white. Wondering if this is a common change that happened as generations changed.

"66. “Can’t we imagine certain people having a different geometryof colour than we do?” That, of course, means: Can’t we imagine
people having colour concepts other than ours? And that in turn
means: Can’t we imagine people who do not have our colour con-
cepts but who have concepts which are related to ours in such a way
that we would also call them “colour concepts”?"

"1 1. In philosophy we must always ask: “How must we look at this
problem in order for it to become solvable?"
classic fmf moment

"33. Here I would like to make a general observation concerning the
nature of philosophical problems. Lack of clarity in philosophy is
tormenting. It is felt as shameful. We feel: we do not know our way
about where we should know our way about. And nevertheless it
isn't so. We can get along very well without these distinctions and
without knowing our way about here."
perhaps this captures the spirit here

"55- The description of the phenomena of colour-blindness is part of
psychology. And the description of the phenomena of normal colour
vision too? Of course -but what are the presuppositions of such a
description and for whom is it a description? Or better: what are
the means it employs? When I say, “What does it presuppose? ” that
means “How must one react to this description in order to under-
stand it?” Someone who describes the phenomena of colour-blind-
ness in a book describes them in the concepts of the sighted. "

"180.We are not concerned with the facts of physics here except insofar as they determine the laws governing how things appear."

"268.One might be inclined to believe that an analysis of our colour
concepts would lead ultimately to the colours of places in our visual
field, which would be independent of any spatial or physical interpretation,
for here there would be neither illumination nor shadow
nor high-light, nor transparency nor opaqueness, etc.."

"350.If we introduce the concept of knowing into this investigation,it will be of no help; because knowing is not a psychological state
whose special characteristics explain all kinds of things. On the
contrary, the special logic of the concept “knowing” is not that of a
psychological state."

He really got a bit into epistemology near the end, a precursor to *On certainty* almost. A lot of time spent on transparent white in this book too.

[Soeine]

Reading his "On Certainty" may help to understand what Wittgenstein is doing in this book. It is again his questioning of our normalised world, which is sustained/disguised by the tradition of education and science through the practice of language. He does so with the problem of colour this time. In the case of "On Certainty", his self-contained philosophical inquery seems appropriate because of the subject matter. But I do think that method works well for "Remarks on Colour". Our conceptions of colour have a lot to do with scientific perception, and cannot be solely dealt in philosophical terms. Strictly speaking, white and black are not colours and we have scientific reasons for this proposition. "Transparent white" does not make sense.

[Felix Procházka]

hodne z tech myslenek jsou uz nejak automaticke v teto dobe ale par dost veci mi utkvelo. totalne me stresovalo jak se nektere ty paragrafy opakovaly

[Ahmet Bakir Sbaai]

إذا كنت معتادا على صرامة فيتغنشتاين المنطقية.. فهذا تطبيق آخر لها لكن هذه المرة على الألوان!

[Chant]

When compared to other books by Wittgenstein, this one wasn't one that I particularly enjoyed as much as "on certainty" or the blue and brown books. My take on perception of colour and generally the world is what i would call/consider myself, being a naive realist. Not a bad book, just not one I'll come back to often. (May 26, 2016)

Edit: I reread this book this year and it really does grow on you. Benefits if you read the philosophical investigations and Zettel. (September 7, 2017)

Edit (2): I come again, 9 years after the fact, and my opinion on Wittgenstein's remarks on colour has massively changed. As indicated in my 2016 "review", I apparently was a naive realist? Nonetheless, the perception of colour still amazes me and with getting the luxury to read Goethe and a better understanding of the cognitive science of perception and colour, plenty of these remarks in this less-common collection of Wittgenstein musings still astound me. (January 13, 2026)

[Colleen Earle]

Even after weeks of reflection and writing a paper on it, I'm not sure I understand why Wittgenstein wants green to be a primary colour.

This was not the hardest thing Wittgenstein wrote to read, but it was still a bit of a slog at times. I feel like I'm a better person now that I've done it. Colour is an interesting thing.

[Ali Amiri]

ترجمۀ لیلی گلستان از فاجعه هم بدتره. طرف فکر کرده چون گالری‌داره و چهار تا نقاشی دیده می‌تونه کتابی که اسمش «دربارۀ رنگ‌ها»ست، از ویتگنشتاین ترجمه کنه؟ اون‌هم نه از آلمانی بلکه از فرانسه؟

مقدمه‌ای که بابک احمدی برای این کتاب نوشته البته مقدمۀ خواندنی و زندگی‌نامۀ جمع‌وجوری از ویتگنشتاینه. این یک ستاره هم واسه همین مقدمه است.

[Ling]

imagine someone pointing to a place in the iris of a rembrandt eye and saying: "the walls in my room should be painted this colour". (9)

ludwig wittgenstein. remarks on colour. ed. g.e.m. anscombe. trans. linda l. mcalister and margarete schättle. oxford: blackwell publishing, 1977.

[M. W.]

This is Wittgenstein's collection of questions, statements, and observations on color. This is a must-read for visual artists and colorists in every field. Although the format is a bit tedious at first, you get into a rhythm and fall into a read-ponder-read cadence that this book requires.

[Erik Graff]

I read this with some interest, having done a paper on color theory for a science class freshman year in high school. This was read for an independent study conducted by Father William Ellos at Loyola University Chicago years later.

[Derek]

A must for any colorist

[Meg]

precious

[Jonathan]

III-295: "That which I am writing about so tediously, may be obvious to someone whose mind is less decrepit."

[Sara]

Along with Hans H. - biggest influence on my painting.

[Eugéne]

Best introduction to Wittgenstein since it discusses the logic of colour terms and not the psychology of colour perception.