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David answered on
Dec 22 2021
Locke's Theory of Knowledge
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The Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding, states the most persuasive and well-
known edition of the difference between the primary qualities and secondary qualities (“Full text
of "Philosophy and Religion: A Series of Addresses, Essays and Sermons Designed …"”, n.d.).
The exclusive significance of his essay was that it was the first ever organized demonstration of
an *empiricist* philosophy of attitude and perception: a theory of knowledge and credence
founded solely on the attitude and opinion that the whole thing in our mind acquires there by
way of experience. The first principle of an empiricist philosophy of mind is often illustrated by
the notion of a Tabula Rasa, or a blank slate (an illustration Locke himself made famous in the
Essay) (“Essay Concerning Human Understanding: John Locke”, n.d.). According to this
principle, at birth, our minds a
ive into this world completely empty, like a pure white sheet of
paper, and it is only as experience "writes" on this paper that ideas and thoughts begin to form.
This essay is not based on one aspect of life related to theory of knowledge; but it covers
spectacularly wide range of distinguished topics and these are language philosophy, logic
philosophy, and philosophy of moral, religion philosophy and all in relation to the philosophy
that deals with mind and perception. All the topics are covered with utter intelligence and
challengingly in order to justify the theory of knowledge and distinguishing between the primary
and secondary qualities in context of Locke's Theory of Knowledge, especially with his theory of
perception ) (“Essay Concerning Human Understanding: John Locke”, n.d.).
Locke on thedistinction between primary and secondary qualities
The distinctions between the primary and secondary qualities are so important that in spite of its
antiquity, it is considered as the most important modern philosophy by other authors and writers
as well (Agoodmixture, 2002).
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Perception is considered as the prime factor ofdistinction between the primary and secondary
qualities and is defines independently how are things perceived by human mind and what are the
qualities that help in perceiving a particular thought or quality (Agoodmixture, 2002). Therefore,
he said that a mountain or a tower apparently covers a large space and relatively remains at rest,
whether it is being perceived or not. And on the other hand the mountains appears purple from a
distance is a proof of an artefact that interacts with the object of a particular type of perpetual
apparatus (“Full text of "Philosophy and Religion: A Series of Addresses, Essays and Sermons
Designed …", n.d.). For instance, Dogs do not have receptor of colour definition in their eyes
and therefore for them everything in this world is black and white but on the other hand, human
eings who have colour receptors see the world in multiple shades of colours. Therefore, of there
is no perpetual apparatus in humans then there will be light rays and absorption of lights but
there will be no perceived colours.
What is the difference between the primary qualities and secondary qualities? It is very important
to understand these qualities from a viewpoint of a human mind in relation to the perpetual
apparatus of perception. Locke gave the following distinction between the primary and
secondary qualities:
The inherent features of an object are the Primary Qualities which include the bulk figures,
texture and motion of the parts of the object (“Full text of "Course of the history of modern
philosophy"”, n.d.). These features cannot be separated from the object therefore even if the
object is
oken into small pieces which are impossible to be perceived, the primary qualities
emain independent of our perception. As per Locke’s theory our ideas of the primary qualities
Locke's Theory of Knowledge
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ofa large object are exactly similar to the qualities perceived in the object (“Locke: The Origin of
Ideas”, n.d.).
The supremacy, command and dominance of human mind to generate ideas of the colours, smell,
tastes etc. are the Secondary Qualities of an object. But in these cases the ideas of the human
mind are unable to resemble the causes of thesis things but the secondary qualities are nothing
other than the primary qualities that reflects the insensible part of the objects (“Full text of
"Philosophy and Religion: A Series of Addresses, Essays and Sermons Designed …"”, n.d.). He
also talked about tertiary qualities which are the capabilities of the objects to cause and trigger
the perceptible changes in other things.
These distinctions are important for any representative humanist or pragmatist. There are many
examples that explain the perpetual illusion in context of secondary qualities which are
completely dependent on our sensory organs, but the probability of the accuracy of the
information I kept preserved, at least in this principle. For example: a botanical expert has the
capability of achieving a complete technical knowledge of roses but it has nothing to with our
appreciation of the beauty of the flower. (“Full text of "Space, time, and deity : the Gifford
lectures at Glasgow, 1916-1918"”, n.d.).
Here, Locke stated that there is a crucial difference between the two simple ideas as well that are
eing received from our sensations (“Essay Concerning Human Understanding: John Locke”,
n.d.). As he said, that the ideas that are received by human mind completely reflects the causes
in the world; whereas other do not (“Full text of "Course of the history of modern philosophy"”,
n.d.). The primary qualities are the qualities that explain the resemblance of these ideas and
Locke's Theory of Knowledge
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