81:1 January 1998
Secondary Qualities Generalized 

Advisory Editor: Peter Menzies, Canberra

In recent years a number of philosophers have argued that the concepts of the secondary qualities represent a useful model for understanding other significant concepts. A secondary quality concept is one which is rooted essentially in human responses: more precisely, a statement that a secondary quality is exemplified by an object is a priori equivalent to a statement that the object would elicit a distinctive response from a suitable human subject under suitable conditions. It has been argued by Mark Johnston, John McDowell, Philip Pettit, Hilary Putnam, and Crispin Wright, among others, that a whole range of concepts, including those of value, intentionality, personal identity, modality, and meaning, can be usefully construed along these lines, as generalised secondary quality concepts. The purpose of this issue is to examine the truth of these claims and their implications for the more general philosophical issue of realism.

Table of Contents:

Mark Johnston 

Are Manifest Qualities Response-Dependent?

Chris Daly 

Modality and Acquaintance with Properties

Nenad Miscevic 

The Aposteriority of Response-Dependence

Michael Smith and Daniel Stoljar 

Global Response-dependence and Noumenal Realism.

Philip Pettit 

Noumenalism and Response-Dependence

Mark Sainsbury 

Projections and Relations