Question

What is the main problem that Locke is going to have with his distinction between primary and secondary qualities?

Answer 1

As we know that there are two types of qualities in every individual, that is primary qualities and secondary qualities. The primary qualities are real qualities of each and every physical objects. The primary qualities are as solidity, figure, extension, motion, and rest. On the other hand secondary qualities change with the change in time. The secondary qualities are not real qualities. Some important secondary qualities are as colour, taste, and smell, which are merely the effects of such real properties on the mind. Simply, 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.

Locke made an important dintinction between these two qualities. The primary qualities of objects produce ideas in our minds that “resemble” the corresponding qualities in the objects that caused us to have those ideas. The secondary qualities of objects produce ideas in our minds that do not resemble the corresponding qualities in the objects that produced those ideas in our minds. According to Locke shape is a primary quality where as colour is a secondary quality. The primary qualities of objects produce ideas in us that resemble those qualities, while the secondary qualities of objects produce ideas in us that do not resemble those qualities.  The rest is just a matter of seeing the implications of this, and of understanding why it’s so easy to get confused in trying to make this claim.

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