Defending against `contextualism'

I am discussing views on which experience presents (represents?...) certain colors. What about `contextualist' or `situation-dependent' views on which this is not true? Here is one such view from Sean Kelly:

``On my view the phenomenon of perceptual constancy shows us something crucial about the context dependence of perceptual experience. In particular, it shows us that the complete and accurate account of my perceptual experience of the color of an object must contain some reference to the lighting context in which that color is perceived. Without a reference to the context we won't have the resources necessary to explain the change in experience that occurs when the lighting context is varied. If this is right, as all perceptual psychologists agree, that this change in not a change in color (hence the name `color constancy'), then no color concept, not even a demonstrative one, could completely describe the content of a color experience...[the perceptual demonstrative] `that color' is unable to distinguish between that color as presented in the sun and the same color as presented in the shade. Because the relevant difference is not a difference in color, no color term could make such a distinction. Since such a distinction is clearly made in experience---the color looks different in the sun than in the shade---the demonstrative concept is inadequate to account for the experience." (Kelly, ``The non-conceptual content of perceptual experience," PPR May 2001, pg 607)

What exactly to make of this? Let us accept the view that one and the same color looks different in the sun than in the shade. When I carry the sample from sun to shade, my experience changes, but the represented color doesn't change. Conclusion: my experience represents both lighting and color. [Comparison: I am testing to see whether my friend can hold his breath for a minute. I watch him for a full minute while he is underwater. My experience represents that he hasn't moved, but clearly my experience has represented some kind of change: the passage of time---my experience represents both position and time.] What shall we say, then? One thing would be a temporalist-type view of content: my experience maps color-lighting ordered-pairs to truth-values. Another view would be more eternalist: my experience represents a color at a certain fixed lighting. The lighting, being a feature of context, need not be represented by me in any way; it's merely an external feature needed for the `completeness' of the truth-conditions associated with my experience. It seems like the guiding thought for deciding between these view might be: could I have had the exact same experience under different lighting? If yes, then it is fair to say that my experience only represents a function from ordered pairs of color-and-lighting to truth-values; if no, then a more temporalist view is suggested. Either way, it does seem like a simple instruction to `fix the lighting' would be ok.

...Well, I don't know. How is Kelly's argument about demonstratives supposed to work? The idea must be that a demonstrative term like ``that shade" picks out a function from colors to truth-values, while the content of experience must be a function from color-lighting pairs to truth-values. Does it then follow that ``no color concept, not even a demonstrative one, could completely describe the content of a color experience...[since the perceptual demonstrative] `that color' is unable to distinguish between that color as presented in the sun and the same color as presented in the shade"? I suppose so; what the referent of the demonstrative would contribute is a function from lighting-conditions to truth-values; but the content of perception fixes the lighting as well as the shade. Our experiences are `opinionated' w.r.t. the lighting conditions, but the content of the demonstrative ``that shade'' is not.