PRIMARY QUALITIES. - They are, according to the common acceptation after Locke (v.), the qualities (v.) of bodies without which the body itself would be inconceivable and which are therefore held to exist really and physically in material reality. Primary q. are extension, figure, number, local mode, and opposed to them are the secondary ones, such as colors, sounds, tastes, odors, which are held to be "subjective."

The principle of the distinction between primary and secondary q. can already be found in Democritus (v.), who affirmed: "Opinion is color, opinion is sweet, opinion is bitter, truth are atoms and the void" (frg. 49). In the modern era Galileo, in the famous passage of the Saggiatore (Opere, ed. naz., VI, p. 348) affirms that figure, size, number and local motion belong necessarily to the body (and are those which Locke, in the Essay, II, ch. 8, § 9, will call primary q.), while color, sound, taste, odor "have their residence in the sensitive body." Also for Descartes (Medit., II, ed. Adam-Tannery, VII, p. 30 ff.) the only real quality of bodies is extension. This doctrine is accepted by all who profess so-called critical realism (v. PERCEPTIONISM; REALISM).

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: Cl. Baeumker, Primäre und sekundäre Qualitäten, Berlin 1909; E. Amadeo, Il fondamento e il valore della distinzione tra q. p. e secondarie, Milan 1920. See also the bibliography of the entries KNOWLEDGE; SENSATION.

Sofia Vanni Rovighi

@incollection{ec10_primarie_qualita, author = {Vanni, Rovighi Sofia}, title = {Primarie, qualità}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {X}, pages = {4}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/primarie-qualita} }

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Primary Qualities

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