more from this thinker     |     more from this text

Single Idea 6512

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

Full Idea

Primary qualities and secondary qualities are often distinguished on the grounds that secondaries are restricted to one sensory modality, but primaries can appear in more.

Clarification

A 'modality' is a way of doing it, such as sight or hearing

Gist of Idea

Secondary qualities have one sensory mode, but primary qualities can have more

Source

Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], VIII.7)

Book Ref

Robinson,Howard: 'Perception' [Routledge 2001], p.207

A Reaction

This distinction seems to me to be accurate and important. It is not just that the two types are phenomenally different - it is that the best explanation is that the secondaries depend on their one sense, but the primaries are independent.

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]