Differences in Primary and Secondary Qualities Philosophy Essay
In conclusion, it can be said that John Locke's theory of knowledge makes an important contribution to the philosophical understanding of how we acquire knowledge. His emphasis on experience, the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, and the role of perception and ideas have shaped subsequent philosophical discourse and influenced examples of primary research versus secondary research. The following table illustrates the differences between primary and secondary research examples. The first column provides examples of topics, while the second column provides primary research examples of methods and materials that researchers can use to collect data on. As AD Smith suggests in his essay Of Primary and Secondary Qualities, the philosophical implications that extend from any system that proposes to define these two qualities of material objects – and thus any theoretical distinction between them – are quite extensive. Since the question of primary and secondary qualities, Locke's division between primary and secondary qualities in Chapter VIII of Book II of the Essay has been a persistent philosophical perennial that has withstood centuries of misrepresentation. Since the seventeenth century it has been normal to refer to the division between these two supposedly different types of qualities as the distinction between primary and secondary quality. Further reading Alexander, P. 1985: Ideas, qualities and corpuscles: Locke and Boyle on the external world, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The opening essays on the ancient Greeks Mi-Kyoung Lee and the scholastic Robert Pasnau effectively continue this revisionism, with clear explanations of the different functions played by the distinction between primary and secondary, as employed by the Greeks and later by scholastics, in the context of their four elements - earth, water.