Abstract

Philosophers and natural scientists have often drawn a distinction between two kinds of properties that physical objects may have. It is particularly associated with atomistic accounts of matter, and is as old as the ancient Greek theories of Democritus and Epicurus. According to the atomists, matter consists of tiny particles ‐ atoms ‐ having no other properties than those such as shape, weight, solidity, and size. Other putative properties ‐ for example, those of color, taste, and smell ‐ were regarded as the names of experiences caused by the impact of particles on an observer, and had no independent existence as qualities in the object. Since the seventeenth century it has been normal to characterize the division between these two supposedly different kinds of properties as the primary‐secondary quality distinction.