primary qualities

British  

plural noun

1. (in empiricist philosophy) those properties of objects that are directly known by experience, such as size, shape, and number

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

primary qualities

This bus has primary qualities of solidity and space occupancy that exist independently of our perceptual machinery and that can do us injury.

From Scientific American ● Aug. 27, 2019

But if this be true, the use of the term 'look' or 'appear' in connexion with colour involves a difficulty which does not arise when it is used in connexion with the primary qualities.

From Kant's Theory of Knowledge by Harold Arthur Prichard

It would require a most able metaphysician to explain how many primary qualities of the mind must be changed to cause these diversities of complex dispositions.

From The Foundations of the Origin of Species Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 by Sir Francis Darwin

The primary qualities are qualities of body, as perceived in relation to the percipient mind, i.e., of the phenomenal body perceived as in space.

From The Philosophy of the Conditioned by Henry Longueville Mansel

These are social or conventional virtues; he represents mainly primary qualities and forces.

From Whitman A Study by John Burroughs

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