Full Idea
Crucial to the scientific method is the ability to abstract out the subjective qualities that we give to things - such as beauty, meaning, purpose, and value - and focus only on the objective qualities of things, which can be measured and quantified.
Gist of Idea
Science has to abstract out the subjective attributes of things, focusing on what is objective
Source
Kevin Aho (Existentialism: an introduction [2014], 1 'Emergence')
A Reaction
This seems to me exactly right. People who deny the primary/secondary distinction, like Hume, are usually correspondingly pessimistic about science. And Hume was wrong about that.
Book Reference
Aho,Kevin: 'Existentialism: an introduction' [Polity 2014], p.5
Related Idea
Idea 5466 Primary qualities are number, figure, size, texture, motion, configuration, impenetrability and (?) mass [Ellis]