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

But, in the first place, those most close to the tradition of materialism maintain that the most significant appearances, the primary qualities, are those which compose a purely quantitative and corporeal world.

From The Approach to Philosophy by Perry, Ralph Barton

And of primary qualities, also, precisely the same thing may with equal confidence be alleged.

From Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics With Some of Their Applications by Thornton, William Thomas

These games are all exactly the same in their primary qualities: the first of them that was invented had all the faults of all its successors.

From Wings and the Child or, the Building of Magic Cities by Nesbit, E. (Edith)

Some primary qualities of his genius are pretty evenly balanced by some primary faults. 

From Views and Reviews Essays in appreciation by Henley, William Ernest