Reidis Inheritance from Locke, and How He Overcomes It

Reid's unusual primary/secondary quality distinction is drawn along epistemic lines. Reid takes an epistemic turn because of Locke's failure to draw a metaphysical distinction. Secondary qualities differ from primary qualities in virtue of the fact that we acquire notions of secondary qualities via the mediation of sensations. Primary qualities require no such mediation. In one respect, the analysis I set out renders qualities relative to agents. I address whether Reid advocates a dispositional theory of secondary qualities, whether the phenomenology of color underlying Reid's theory is tenable, and whether Reid's distinction coheres well with his theory of perceptual knowledge.