David Katz’s Phenomenology of Colour and Light

David Katz was an empirical psychologist with a deep and abiding interest in phenomenology. This paper reconstructs his theory of colour and colour perception, central to which is a distinctive account of the perception of illumination and empty space. Katz’s views were an important influence on both the Gestalt psychologists and phenomenologists such as Merleau-Ponty, and have contemporary relevance to ongoing debates about the nature of colour and colour perception. Reflection on Katz’s theory of colour and colour perception provides a way of understanding whether, and in what sense, Katz was a phenomenologist; it thereby provides a perspective on wider questions about the nature of phenomenology.