Sensory Qualities, Sensible Qualities, Sensational Qualities

Abstract

In theorizing about perception philosophers have often multiplied qualities. To perceptible qualities of external objects, like colours and shapes (‘sensible’ qualities), have been added qualities of experiences (‘sensory’ qualities) or of sense-data (‘sensational’ qualities). This article starts with sensory qualities. The phrase ‘sensory quality’ is not much in use these days, having lost out to ‘phenomenal character’, ‘phenomenal property’, ‘qualitative character’, or ‘quale’. But whatever sensory qualities are called, pinning them down is no easy matter.