Answering the Problem of Secondary Qualities

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher A. Shrock
Keyword(s):  
Saul Kripke ◽  
Secondary Qualities

Reid's account of secondary qualities offers an alternative to the Non-Physicality Thesis from Chapter 2. It explains how secondary qualities can be objective without featuring obviously in scientific discussions. Perception alone reveals the existence of secondary qualities but leaves science to discern their natures This chapter answers Frank Jackson's case against counting secondary qualities as objective and relates Reid's secondary qualities to Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam's work on empirically discovered identities.

Saul Kripke

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. W. Fitch
Keyword(s):  
Saul Kripke

Reid's Primary/Secondary Quality Distinction in a Broad Context

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-62
Author(s):  
Adam Weiler Gur Arye
Keyword(s):  
Broad Context ◽  
Secondary Qualities ◽  
Secondary Quality ◽  
Quality Distinction

The paper focuses on Reid's unique epistemological distinction between the primary and the secondary qualities and examines it in relation to other facets of his philosophy: his stance vis-à-vis the scientific inquiries of secondary qualities; his aesthetics; his analysis of the perception of the primary quality of hardness; his theory of learning. An inquiry into the primary/secondary distinction which takes into account such a broad context will reveal it to be far more sophisticated, dynamic and flexible than an analysis of the distinction which solely takes into consideration the passages in which the Scottish philosopher directly and straightforwardly introduces it.

Are the Colours of Things Secondary Qualities?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Stroud
Keyword(s):  
General Notion ◽  
John Mcdowell ◽  
Secondary Qualities ◽  
Independent Reality ◽  
Metaphysical Status

This chapter challenges the notion that the colours we believe to belong to the objects we see are ‘secondary’ qualities of those objects. Such a notion is endorsed by John McDowell, who has explained why he thinks the author is wrong to resist it. McDowell recognizes that the author’s focus on the conditions of successfully unmasking the metaphysical status of the colours of things is a way of trying to make sense of whatever notion of reality is involved in it. However, the author argues that the notion of reality he is concerned with is ‘independent reality’, not simply the general notion of reality. He also contends that an exclusively dispositional conception of an object’s being a certain colour cannot account for the perceptions we have of the colours of things.

Of Primary and Secondary Qualities

1990 ◽  
Vol 99 (2) ◽  
pp. 221 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. D. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Qualities

Hume on the Lockean Metaphysics of Secondary Qualities

Hume Studies ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-136
Author(s):  
Jason R. Fisette
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Qualities

Berkeley v. Locke on Primary Qualities

Philosophy ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 55 (212) ◽  
pp. 149-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Stroud
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Standard Interpretation ◽  
Secondary Qualities ◽  
Primary Qualities ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Made In

Locke was once supposed to have argued that since the colours, sounds, odours, and other ‘secondary’ qualities things appear to have can vary greatly according to the state and position of the observer, it follows that our ideas of the ‘secondary’ qualities of things do not ‘resemble’ anything existing in the objects themselves. And Berkeley has been credited with the obvious objection that similar facts about the ‘relativity’ of our perception of ‘primary’ qualities show that they do not ‘resemble’ anything existing in the objects either, so that both ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ qualities exist only ‘in the mind’. The falsity of this view of Locke has been amply demonstrated in recent years, but no corresponding revision has been made in what remains the standard interpretation of Berkeley's criticisms of Locke. His objections therefore appear to be based on misunderstanding and to be irrelevant to what is now seen to be Locke's actual view and his reasons for holding it. I think this account of Berkeley, like the old view of Locke, is a purely fictional chapter in the history of philosophy, and in this paper I try to show that Berkeley's criticisms involve no misunderstanding and amount to a direct denial of the view Locke actually held.

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