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

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

These few primary qualities, like extension which we persist in treating as independently real and as the quality of a substance, are those which suffice to explain the order of our experiences.

From The Sense of Beauty Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory by Santayana, George

Now by Locke's definition above given, only bulk, figure, situation, and motion or rest of solid parts, are primary qualities.

From Modern Painters Volume I (of V) by Ruskin, John

Berkeley was the first thinker clearly to perceive the unsubstantial nature of a world made up solely of primary qualities.

From International Congress of Arts and Science, Volume I Philosophy and Metaphysics by Various

I am well aware that vitality and majesty are the primary qualities to demand both in life and literature.

From Essays by Benson, Arthur Christopher