Define primary and secondary qualities with examples?
Answers
Answer:
Primary qualities are thought to be properties of objects that are independent of any observer, such as solidity, extension, motion, number and figure. These characteristics convey facts. They exist in the thing itself, can be determined with certainty, and do not rely on subjective judgments. For example, if an object is spherical, no one can reasonably argue that it is triangular. Primary qualities as mentioned earlier, exist outside of the observer.
Secondary qualities are thought to be properties that produce sensations in observers, such as color, taste, smell, and sound. They can be described as the effect things have on certain people. Knowledge that comes from secondary qualities does not provide objective facts about things. The example of apple, something such as the redness of the apple does not produce an image of the object itself, but rather the idea of red. Secondary qualities are used to classify similar ideas produced by an object. That is why when we see something “red” it is only “red” in our minds because they produce the same idea as another object. So, going back to the color of the apple, it produces an idea of red, which we classify and identify with other red ideas. Again, secondary qualities do not exist inside the mind; they are simply the powers that allow us to sense a certain object and thus ‘reflect’ and classify similar ideas.
Hope it helps you!
primary qualities:, they exist inside the actual body/substance and create an idea in our mind that resembles the object.
Secondary qualities: are thought to be properties that produce sensations in observers, such as color, taste, smell, and sound.
Examples:
The ideas which resemble their causes are the ideas of primary qualities: texture, number, size, shape, motion.
The ideas which do not resemble their causes are the ideas of secondary qualities: color, sound, taste, and odor.