Discuss the implications for psychology of Galileo’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities.
Galileo Galilei was an Italian astronomer, physicist, philosopher and mathematician who corrected number of misconceptions about the world and other heavenly bodies. He viewed the universe as a perfect machine and believed on Pythagorean-Platonic philosophy.
Like Copernicus and Kepler, Galileo accepted the Copernican heliocentric theory. In one of his book, he demolished all the misconceptions about the world of appearances and discovered other objects in the universe.
Galileo distinguished two types of qualities in his way namely, primary and secondary. According to him, primary qualities are objective, absolute and capable of precise mathematical descriptions. Secondary qualities are subjective, relative and fluctuating. According to him, one can have true knowledge with primary qualities, while there are only assumptions and opinions with secondary qualities.
He distinguished both the qualities with their realities and considered that primary qualities are real and secondary qualities just seem to be real. He said that when the living creatures were removed, the secondary qualities would be wiped away and annihilated. However, the primary qualities do exist always independent of those creatures. Primary qualities include number, figure, motion, extensions, shape, and size and position, while secondary qualities include taste, odor, color, sound and temperature.
As a conclusion, it can be said that Galileo made distinctions on primary and secondary qualities, and considered the primary qualities as physical reality and science. According to him, secondary qualities are more subjective, not constant, purely psychological experiences and have no counterparts in the physical world.
Secondary ones are mere names and can abolished with the removal of sensitive bodies on earth. This has raised concern over the man’s place in the world and he considered man’s qualities as inferior to the real world. Thus, his conclusions about secondary qualities were incorrect.