Quale

Roughly speaking, a quale (plural “qualia”) is the character of a sensory experience. It’s not the color red as light (which is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength of roughly 625–740 nm), but what you experience when looking at something red that you don’t experience when looking at something (e.g.) blue or green. It’s an important concept central to the philosophy of perception.

Kanenas

Tweet

Pin It

April 6th, 2009 | April 6th, 2009 | % | (27 votes, average: 7.85 out of 10)
 Loading ...

1 comment to Quale

• John Kaplin

  April 15, 2009 at 1:54 pm

  I have seen this word appearing recently in philosophical papers. but I could never fix its meaning from the woolly contexts of its users. Your brief def. has perhaps given me an “in”. Do you mean, as you suggest, that qualia are the subjective impressions that we all attach, like riders, like personal baggage, to purely physical and objective qualities like color?

44 queries. 1.342 seconds.