Meaning & use
quale
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Meaning
nouncountabletechnicalspecialist
A single instance of a private, felt quality of experience, such as the exact way the color red looks or a headache feels to you.
Grammar: Singular form; the plural qualia is much more common.
Patterns
- the quale of something
Philosophers ask whether the quale of seeing blue is the same for everyone.
No description can convey the quale of tasting coffee to someone who has never had it.
The quale of a sudden fright is hard to put into words.
Word forms
| plural | qualia |
|---|
Common combinations
- the quale of experience
- The article examines the quale of experience in dreams.
- a visual quale
- A visual quale such as redness cannot be shown by a brain scan alone.
- subjective quale
- Each subjective quale is accessible only to the person having it.
- inverted qualia
- The inverted qualia thought experiment imagines people who see colors swapped.
Synonyms and how they differ
- sensation
- Sensation is a general word for a physical feeling, whereas quale stresses the private, how-it-feels character in philosophical debate.
- raw feel
- Raw feel is a more informal philosophers' phrase for the same idea, while quale is the formal technical term.
- impression
- Impression is looser and can mean an opinion, but quale refers only to the felt quality of experience.
Word family
- qualia noun
- plural of quale, the standard form in discussion
- qualitative adjective
- relating to quality rather than amount
- quality noun
- a characteristic or degree of excellence
Commonly confused: quale or qualia?
quale vs qualia
Qualia is the plural of quale, not a singular word, so say 'qualia are' rather than 'qualia is' in careful writing.
Practice
What is the plural of quale?
Choose one answer.
Quale comes from Latin, and its plural is qualia. 'Quales' is not the accepted plural, and the other options are not forms of this word.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “quale”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.