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Single Idea 22429

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

Full Idea

At the end [of the three stages of objectivity] the secondary qualities drop out of our picture of the external world, and the underlyiing primary qualities such as shape, size, weight, and motion are thought of structurally.

Gist of Idea

We achieve objectivity by dropping secondary qualities, to focus on structural primary qualities

Source

Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], II)

Book Ref

Nagel,Thomas: 'The View from Nowhere' [OUP 1989], p.14

A Reaction

This is the orthodox view for realists about the external world, and I largely agree. The only problem I see is that secondary qualities contain information, such as the colour of rotting fruit - but then colour is not an essential feature of rot.

Related Idea

Idea 22354 Things cause perceptions, properties have other effects, hence we reach a 'view from nowhere' [Nagel, by Reiss/Sprenger]

The 19 ideas with the same theme [dividing qualities into different types]:

16717 Which of the contrary features of a body are basic to it? [Aristotle]
16726 Why can't we deduce secondary qualities from primary ones, if they cause them? [Buridan]
16720 Secondary qualities come from temperaments and proportions of primary qualities [Conimbricense]
15989 Colours, smells and tastes are ideas; the secondary qualities have no colour, smell or taste [Locke, by Alexander,P]
15971 Secondary qualities are powers of complex primary qualities to produce sensations in us [Locke]
12481 Hands can report conflicting temperatures, but not conflicting shapes [Locke]
12546 We can't know how primary and secondary qualities connect together [Locke]
18264 We know the shape of a cone from its concept, but we don't know its colour [Kant]
5453 Essentialists mostly accept the primary/secondary qualities distinction [Ellis]
22429 We achieve objectivity by dropping secondary qualities, to focus on structural primary qualities [Nagel]
3249 Modern science depends on the distinction between primary and secondary qualities [Nagel]
7374 Light wavelengths entering the eye are only indirectly related to object colours [Dennett]
22415 Relativity means differing secondary perceptions are not real disagreements [McGinn]
22416 Phenomenalism is correct for secondary qualities, so scepticism is there impossible [McGinn]
22413 Being red simply consists in looking red [McGinn]
22422 Maybe all possible sense experience must involve both secondary and primary qualities [McGinn]
22428 You understood being red if you know the experience involved; not so with thngs being square [McGinn]
6512 Secondary qualities have one sensory mode, but primary qualities can have more [Robinson,H]
7051 Objects only have secondary qualities because they have primary qualities [Heil]