Single Idea 22423

[catalogued under 12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / c. Primary qualities]

Full Idea

Bennett's claim that touch provides experience of primary qualities without experience of any secondary qualities strikes me as false, because tactile experience includes felt temperature, which is a dispositional secondary quality.

Gist of Idea

Touch doesn't provide direct experience of primary qualities, because touch feels temperature

Source

Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 6)

Book Reference

McGinn,Colin: 'The Subjective View' [OUP 1983], p.85


A Reaction

[J.Bennett 1971 pp. 90-4] Fair point. What about shape and texture? We experience forces, but the shape is assembled in imagination rather than in experience. So do we meet primary qualities directly in forces, such as acceleration? No secondary quality?