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Single Idea 7051

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

Full Idea

Secondary qualities are not distinct from primary qualities: an object's possession of a given secondary quality is a matter of its possession of certain complex primary qualities.

Gist of Idea

Objects only have secondary qualities because they have primary qualities

Source

John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 17.3)

Book Ref

Heil,John: 'From an Ontological Point of View' [OUP 2005], p.200

A Reaction

The bottom line here is that, if essentialism is right, colours are not properties at all (see Idea 5456). Heil wants to subsume secondary properties within primary properties. I think we should sharply distinguish them.

Related Idea

Idea 5456 Redness is not a property as it is not mind-independent [Ellis]

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]