And this brings me to the following point: When someone asks me, “What colour is the book over there?”, and I say, “Red”, and then he asks, “What made you call this colour ‘red’?”, I shall in most cases have to say: “Nothing makes me call it red; that is, no reason. I just looked at it and said, ‘It's red’”. One is then inclined to say: “Surely this isn't all that happened; for I could look at a colour and say a word and still not name the colour.” And then one is inclined to go on to say: “The word ‘red’ when we pronounce it, naming the colour we look at, comes in a particular way.” But, at the same time, asked, “Can you describe the way you mean?” – – one wouldn't feel prepared to give any description. Suppose we now asked: “Do you, at any rate, remember that the name of the colour

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112.

came to you in that particular way whenever you named colours on former occasions?” – – he would have to admit that he didn't remember a particular way in which this always happened. In fact one could easily make him see that naming a colour could go along with all sorts of different exper[e|i]ences. Compare such cases as these: a) I put an iron in the fire to heat it to light red heat. I am asking you to watch the iron and want you to tell me from time to time what stage of heat it has reached. You look and say: “It is beginning to get light red.” b) We stand at a street crossing and I say: “Watch out for the red light. When it comes on, tell me and I'll run across.” Ask yourself this question: If in one such case you shout “Green!” and in another “Run!”, do these words come in the same way or different ways? Can

one
you

say anything about this in a general way? c) I ask you: “What's the colour of the bit of material you have in your hand?” (and I can't see). You think: “Now what does one call this? Is this ‘Prussian blue’ or ‘indigo’?”

(2015–) Wittgenstein Source Bergen Nachlass Edition (WS-BNE). Edited by the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen under the direction of Alois Pichler. In: Wittgenstein Source, curated by Alois Pichler (2009–) and Joseph Wang-Kathrein (2020–). (N) Bergen: WAB.