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Single Idea 22414

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

Full Idea

To grasp what it is for something to be square it is not constitutively necessary to know how square things look or feel, since what it is to be square does not involve any such relation to experience.

Gist of Idea

You don't need to know how a square thing looks or feels to understand squareness

Source

Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 2)

Book Ref

McGinn,Colin: 'The Subjective View' [OUP 1983], p.8

A Reaction

You could even describe squareness verbally, unlike redness. It seems crucial that almost any sense (such as bat echoes) can communicate primary qualities, but secondary qualities are tied to a sense, and wouldn't exist without it.

Related Idea

Idea 22413 Being red simply consists in looking red [McGinn]

The 19 ideas from 'Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals'

22413 Being red simply consists in looking red [McGinn]
22415 Relativity means differing secondary perceptions are not real disagreements [McGinn]
22416 Phenomenalism is correct for secondary qualities, so scepticism is there impossible [McGinn]
22412 Lockean secondary qualities (unlike primaries) produce particular sensory experiences [McGinn]
22414 You don't need to know how a square thing looks or feels to understand squareness [McGinn]
18410 Indexical thought is in relation to my self-consciousness [McGinn]
22417 Indexicals do not figure in theories of physics, because they are not explanatory causes [McGinn]
22418 I can know indexical truths a priori, unlike their non-indexical paraphrases [McGinn]
22420 The indexical perspective is subjective, incorrigible and constant [McGinn]
22423 Touch doesn't provide direct experience of primary qualities, because touch feels temperature [McGinn]
22426 We can perceive objectively, because primary qualities are not mind-created [McGinn]
18402 Indexical concepts are indispensable, as we need them for the power to act [McGinn]
22421 Could there be a mind which lacked secondary quality perception? [McGinn]
22424 Secondary qualities contain information; their variety would be superfluous otherwise [McGinn]
22425 The utility theory says secondary qualities give information useful to human beings [McGinn]
22422 Maybe all possible sense experience must involve both secondary and primary qualities [McGinn]
22427 To explain object qualities, primary qualities must be more than mere sources of experience [McGinn]
22428 You understood being red if you know the experience involved; not so with thngs being square [McGinn]
7629 We see objects 'directly' by representing them [McGinn]