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

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

Strictly speaking, however, Hamilton held that the primary qualities are immediately perceived only in our organism as extended, and inferred to exist in extra-organic bodies.

From The Philosophy of the Conditioned by Mansel, Henry Longueville

In the first rank among the primary qualities is solidity, which is given to you in the sensation of resistance, and inevitably accompanied by form, etc.

From Lectures on the true, the beautiful and the good by Cousin, Victor

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