Words for Sensible Qualities and the Problem of Perceptual Variation

2019 ◽  
pp. 184-212
Author(s):  
Mario Gómez-Torrente
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Secondary Quality ◽  
Primary Qualities ◽  
Normal People ◽  
Relevant Reference ◽  
Sensible Qualities ◽  
Perceptual Variation

This chapter proposes a picture of reference fixing for color adjectives and adjectives for other sensible qualities, according to which the relevant reference-fixing conventions allow those adjectives to be used with different intended standards in different contexts. It is argued that this explains the fact (used by secondary-quality theorists and eliminativists in “perceptual variation arguments”) that different equally normal people classify the same object by means of prima facie incompatible color adjectives, and that the explanation is perfectly compatible with the properties referred to by uses of these adjectives being primary qualities or objective properties. It is also argued that the picture satisfies a number of desiderata not satisfied by other objectivist theories in the literature.

Realism, Essentialism, and Intrinsic Properties: The Case of Molecular Shape

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffry L. Ramsey
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Structure ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Molecular Shape ◽  
Secondary Qualities ◽  
Fundamental Properties ◽  
Spatial Properties ◽  
Primary Qualities ◽  
Physical Features ◽  
Sensible Qualities

Figure, or shape, has long been ensconced in modern philosophy as a primary or essential quality of matter. Descartes, Malebranche, Hobbes, and Boyle all apparently endorsed the Lockean claim that shape is “in Bodies whether we perceive them or no” (Locke, [1700] 1975, p. 140). In addition, most seventeenth-century philosophers endorsed the inference that because shape is primary, it is one of the “ultimate, irreducible explanatory principles” (Dijksterhuis, 1961, p. 433; cf. Ihde, 1964, p. 28). Locke has often been read in this way, and in Origins of Forms and Qualities, Boyle claims the “sensible qualities . . . are but the effects or consequents of the . . . primary affections of matter,” one of which is figure (quoted in Harré, 1964, p. 80). Little appears to have changed. Most analytic philosophers and realist-minded philosophers of science “would endorse a distinction between primary and secondary qualities” (Smith, 1990, p. 221). Campbell (1972, p. 219) endorses the claim that “shape, size and solidity are generally held to be primary,” even though he argues that “the philosophy of primary and secondary qualities” is confused. Mackie (1976, p. 18) discounts solidity but endorses spatial properties and motion as “basic” physical features of matter. Most philosophers also endorse the inference to the explanatory character of the primary qualities. Mackie (1976, p. 25) asserts spatial properties are “starting points of explanation.” Boyd (1989, pp. 10-11) claims “realists agree” that “the factors which govern the behavior . . . of substances are the fundamental properties of the insensible corpuscles of which they are composed.” As befits our current situation, explanation purportedly flows from spatial microstructure. A body “possesses a certain potential only because it actually possesses a certain property (e.g., its molecular structure)” (Lange, 1994, pp. 109-110). Even Putnam, who argues all properties are Lockean secondaries, claims powers “have an explanation . . . in the particular microstructure” of matter (Putnam, 1981, p. 58).

Sensible Qualities and Secondary Qualities in the First Dialogue

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Downing
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Qualities ◽  
Secondary Quality ◽  
Quality Distinction ◽  
Sensible Qualities ◽  
Representative Theory

By focusing on the First Dialogue’s use of ‘sensible quality’ rather than ‘idea’, we can draw out some important morals that allow us to better appreciate its actual accomplishments. Whereas the Principles is an attack on materialist mechanism primarily via its representative theory of perception, the First Dialogue is an attack on materialist mechanism primarily via its primary/secondary-quality distinction. Viewing the First Dialogue in this light allows us to see it as more effective and insightful than we otherwise might, although it also requires us to acknowledge that Hylas is never as philosophically naïve as Berkeley sometimes seems to suggest.

Primary and Secondary Qualities

2019 ◽  
pp. 42-62
Author(s):  
Georges Dicker
Keyword(s):  
Causal Chain ◽  
Secondary Qualities ◽  
Secondary Quality ◽  
Primary Qualities ◽  
Hybrid View

This chapter expounds Locke’s theory of primary qualities and secondary qualities and defends a modernized version of it. It argues for the following theses. Although Locke defines secondary qualities as powers in objects to produce in us ideas of color, sound, taste, smell, heat, and cold, he oscillates between equating colors, sounds, etc. with (a) those powers and with (b) the ideas they produce in us. This oscillation stems from Locke’s wanting to say that they are both (a) and (b), despite his basic cleavage between ideas and qualities. Such a hybrid view of them is plausible, especially if we drop the three-term theory of perception often attributed to Locke in favor of a two-term theory, which says that the last term in the perceptual causal chain is the object’s appearing some way to the perceiver, and which distinguishes this “manifest aspect” of a secondary quality from its “dispositional aspect.”

Secondary qualities

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin McGinn
Keyword(s):  
Electric Charge ◽  
Atomic Structure ◽  
Material Object ◽  
Secondary Qualities ◽  
Secondary Quality ◽  
Primary Qualities ◽  
The World ◽  
Sensory Responses ◽  
The One ◽  
Subjective States

Primary qualities are generally defined as those properties that objects have independently of being perceived. Standard examples would include properties of shape, weight, position, electric charge, atomic structure. These properties characterize the way the world is in itself, separately from mind. Secondary qualities, by contrast, are defined as those properties that incorporate sensory responses in their conditions of application, so that the idea of a perceiver is built into their nature. It is more controversial which properties, if any, belong to this category, since not all philosophers agree that the standard alleged examples of secondary qualities – colours, sounds, tastes, smells, feels – are really correctly so classified. Some thinkers hold that objects have only primary qualities. Let us note the significance of the question, concentrating on the case of colour, which is the one most frequently discussed. Objects appear to have both shape and colour in equal measure, but is this really how things are? Depending upon how we answer this question, we get very different pictures of the relation between appearance and reality. If both sorts of property are equally out there, equally objective, then what appears to us in perception is reality itself. When we see a material object we see something that exists independently of our seeing it, and we see the object as it is whether or not there are (or even could be) any perceivers. But if the colour of the object is inherently dependent upon our sensory responses, then the question arises as to whether what we see is really in some way itself mental. If colour is a secondary quality, in other words, do we see things as they really are? What is it that bears colour if colours are in some way mentally constituted? Do we indeed see anything at all, as distinct from introspecting the features of our own subjective states?

Tests for Normal People

1992 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 571-572
Author(s):  
Leo Goldman
Keyword(s):  
Normal People

Emotions of normal people.

1928 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Moulton Marston
Keyword(s):  
Normal People

The Treatment of Patients Having Spontaneously Occurring Antibodies to Antihaemophilic Factor (Factor VIII)

1972 ◽  
Vol 28 (01) ◽  
pp. 120-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
C.R Rizza ◽  
J.O.P Edgcumbe ◽  
W.R Pitney ◽  
J.A Child
Keyword(s):  
Factor Viii ◽  
Rare Occurrence ◽  
Normal People

SummaryThe appearance of antibodies to factor VIII in the blood of previously normal people is a very rare occurrence but when it does happen the haemorrhagic condition which results can be very serious and difficult to treat.From experience of three cases described here it is recommended that treatment be witheld unless there is serious haemorrhage in which case steroids, large doses of cryoprecipitate or other human AHG should be given. In the case of life endangering haemorrhages it is justified to use the much more potent animal AHG preparations along with an immuno-suppressive drug.

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