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Open Philosophy LibraryThree Dialogues Between Hylas And PhilonousGeorge Berkeley

Three Dialogues Between Hylas And Philonous

By George Berkeley

George Berkeley's Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous defends immaterialism through a lively exchange between a materialist and a spokesman for Berkeley's philosophy. Across three Dialogues, sensible qualities are shown to depend upon perception, material substance is criticised as an unknowable abstraction, and the stability of nature is grounded in an infinite perceiving spirit. Published in 1713, the work combines empiricism with idealism while claiming to protect ordinary reality from scepticism.

Publication
1713
Genre
Empiricism; idealism; metaphysics and epistemology
Era
18th Century, Early Modern Philosophy

About this work

Published in 1713, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous is George Berkeley's most accessible defence of immaterialism: the view that sensible objects consist in ideas perceived by minds rather than material substances existing behind experience. The First Dialogue examines heat, taste, sound, colour, extension and motion, arguing that both secondary and primary qualities vary with perceivers and cannot be separated from perception. The Second challenges attempts to preserve matter as an unknown support or cause. Philonous distinguishes passive ideas from active spirits and argues that the orderly sensory world is caused by God. The Third answers objections about reality, illusion, absent objects, scientific explanation and ordinary language. Stable involuntary experience differs from imagination while remaining mind-dependent. Berkeley presents immaterialism as a defence of common sense: familiar objects are directly perceived and real, whereas unknowable material substance is a philosophical invention that encourages scepticism.

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