Discuss Locke’s notion of Primary and Secondary qualities. Why are they significant?

John Locke’s ‘Essay concerning Human Understanding’ (last edition 1705) is widely held to be one of the most significant philosophical works in the history of ideas. Regarded by most as the first British empiricist, Locke sought to explain and understand what we can know, or how knowledge of the physical world is achieved. His fundamental premise was that information is acquired through the senses (sensation) in the form of simple ideas, and is then reflected upon using the power of reason, simple ideas that are in agreement with each other thus produce knowledge. Such a proposition was revolutionary at the time of publication, as the accepted doctrine regarded knowledge as planted in the human mind at birth by God. Locke’s philosophy directly challenged this belief by using the distinction of primary and secondary qualities to show what it is possible to know of the physical world around us. Such a distinction (also used by Boyle and Descartes) relied upon a corpuscular theory...