Locke on Primary and Secondary Qualities

Rickless, Samuel C.

doi:10.1111/1468-0114.00041

Cited by 19 publications

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“…186-8. Against (4a), see Rickless, 1997 andStuart, 2003. 11 Stuart claims that Locke 'stumbles' grammatically, whence this sentence might be dismissed as 'so muddled as not to support any inference about Locke's view of color ' (2003, p. 79).…”

Section: From Secondary Qualities To Secondary Substance Sortsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…as it is really in the Violet’ may be a ‘peculiar Texture of Parts,’ not a power (2.32.14:388; emphasis added). This may be because powers to produce ideas are not (in Locke's sense) ‘real qualities,’ qualities that ‘are in the things themselves, whether they are perceived or no’ (2.8.23:141; see also 2.8.17:137–8, 2.23.9:300 and 2.31.2:376; and Rickless, 1997, pp. 304–5).…”

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Two Kinds of Intentionality in Locke

Shapiro

2010

Pacific Philosophical Qtr

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Ideas play at least two roles in Locke's theory of the understanding. They are constituents of 'propositions,' and some of them 'represent' the qualities and sorts of surrounding bodies. I argue that each role involves a distinct kind of intentional directedness. The same idea will in general be an 'idea of' two different objects, in different senses of the expression. Identifying Locke's scheme of twofold 'ofness' reveals a common structure to his accounts of simple ideas and complex ideas of substances. A consequence is a distinction among substance sorts parallel to one of his distinctions between primary and secondary qualities.p apq_1375 554..586

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Section: From Secondary Qualities To Secondary Substance Sortsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Two Kinds of Intentionality in Locke

Shapiro

2010

Pacific Philosophical Qtr

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“…On such a view, x can be red in w (where there are no minds) if x would be appropriately related to the minds in w, assuming there were any. (This is also not to say that relationalists must take this line; for example, arguably Locke did not intend his relationalism to be understood in terms of subjunctive conditionals (see [Rickless, 1997], 307ff). )…”

Section: From Perceptual Variation To Relationalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Color Properties and Color Ascriptions: A Relationalist Manifesto

Cohen¹

2004

The Philosophical Review

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Upon examination, I find only one of the reasons commonly produc'd for this opinion to be satisfactory, viz. that deriv'd from the variations of those impressions, even while the external object, to all appearance, continues the same. These variations depend upon several circumstances. Upon the different situations of our health: A man in a malady feels a disagreeable taste in meats, which before pleas'd him the most. Upon the different complexions and constitutions of men: That seems bitter to one, which is sweet to another. Upon the difference of their external situation and position: Colours reflected from the clouds change according to the distance of the clouds and according to the angle they make with the eye and luminous body. Fire also communicates the sensation of pleasure at one distance, and that of pain at another. Instances of this kind are very numerous and frequent.-Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, part iv, "Of The Modern Philosophy".Are colors relational or non-relational properties of their bearers? Is red a property that is instantiated by all and only the objects with a certain intrinsic (/non-relational) nature? Or does an object with a particular intrinsic (/nonrelational) nature count as red only in virtue of standing in certain relationsfor example, only when it looks a certain way to a certain perceiver, or only in certain circumstances of observation? In this paper I shall argue for the view that color properties are relational (henceforth, relationalism), and against the view that colors are not relational (henceforth, anti-or non-relationalism).Before I come to this, a caveat is in order. Relationalism is not, by itself, a theory of the nature of color (although it may be more easily reconciled with some theories of the nature of color than others). It is a theory about what sorts of properties colors are -namely, that they are relational properties; but it does not say which properties of that sort -which relational properties, in particular -colors are. As it happens, relationalism has been seen by its fans and foes (e.g., [McGinn, 1983], [Stroud, 2000]) as the most important support for the view that colors are dispositions to appear certain ways to subjects (this is a view sometimes ascribed to modern philosophers such as Galileo, Boyle, Newton, Locke, and defended by more recent writers such as [McGinn, 1983],

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“…According to Samuel Rickless (1997), Locke assumes as a premise that no body possesses any color in the dark. Everything in a dark windowless room is colorless.…”

Section: Various Colors Of Various Thingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cambridge Changes of Color

Jacovides

2000

Pacific Philosophical Qtr

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Locke's porphyry argument at 2.8.19 of the Essay has not been properly appreciated. On my reconstruction, Locke argues from the premise that porphyry undergoes a mere Cambridge change of color in different lighting conditions to the conclusion that porphyry's colors do not belong to it as it is in itself. I argue that his argument is not quite sound, but it would be if Locke chose a different stone, alexandrite. Examining his argument teaches us something about the relation between explanatory qualities and real alterations and something about the ways that colors inhere in bodies.

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Locke on Primary and Secondary Qualities

Cited by 19 publications

References 0 publications

Two Kinds of Intentionality in Locke

Two Kinds of Intentionality in Locke

Color Properties and Color Ascriptions: A Relationalist Manifesto

Cambridge Changes of Color

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