Three Dialogues Between Hylas And Philonous Summary

Role of Common Sense in “Three dialogues between Hylas and Philonous.” Berkeley, adhering to the venerable philosophical tradition inaugurated by Plato, decided to structure one of his works as a dialogue. This would be the Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonus in opposition to Sceptics and Atheists. The purpose of the present essay is to discuss and evaluate the role that common sense plays within this work by Berkeley. The first part of the essay will discuss the basic role of the concept of common sense within the dialogue; and the second part will argue that it is fully appropriate to grant this kind of role to common sense when engaging in metaphysics.
1. The Role of Common Sense To start with, then, it is clear that within Berkeley's
work, common sense essentially plays the role of the final arbiter of truth. Both of the participants in the dialogue (Hylas and Philonus) agree with a certain basic epistemological proposition. This proposition is affirmed by Philonus: "Well then, are you content to accept as true any opinion that turns out to be the most agreeable to common sense, and most remote from skepticism?" (Berkeley 2) To which Hylas responds: "With all my heart. Since you want to start arguments about the plainest things in the world, I am content for once to hear what you have to say" (2). What is in question within the work by Berkeley is not basic legitimacy of common sense; what is really in question pertains to the true implications of common sense itself. In other words, both of the participants in Berkeley's dialogue accept the basic proposition that if a metaphysical proposition is to be valid, then it must pass the test of being congruent with common sense. What is in question, though, pertains to what implications do or do not follow from common sense. When Berkeley argues from the basis of common sense, then, he primarily bases his arguments on what everyday perceptions of the world tell most human beings about the nature of reality. For example, Berkeley posits that a given object may look quite tiny from far away while growing in size as one approaches it, in the same sense that another given object may look extremely vivid when seen through a microscope but quite indistinct when seen by the naked eye (6). Insofar as a property that is intrinsic to an object must remain so independent from any and all perception, the conclusion that follows is that the size of an object cannot in fact be intrinsic to that object itself; rather, it becomes intrinsic to the mind that perceives that object. Moreover, it becomes clear that independent from a mind that perceives the given object, the object cannot even be said to exist, in any meaningful sense. Again, Berkeley's point is to demonstrate that this perspective is fully congruent with common sense (since both of the participants in his dialogue have agreed that common sense must be the arbiter of their dispute). This essentially means that the correct view would be the one that most clearly reflects the ordinary human experience of reality. Or rather: the point of metaphysics would be not to invent some radically different or other world from the one that all human beings inhabit, but rather to evaluate the logic underpinning the real world as just about everyone actually knows it. In this context, it is quite clear that from the perspective of the ordinary person, there is no real conceptual reason to believe that a given object continues existing even after one has ceased to perceive it. Rather, what would seem to be clear is that the object is real to one's mind insofar as one perceives it, and that it ceases to be real insofar as one ceases to perceive it. To believe in the independent reality of the object would require an abstraction that fundamentally cannot be derived from ordinary human experience itself; it can only be derived from a kind of philosophical speculation that is for the most part at odds with common sense. The exception to this line of argument, however, would consist of the fact that "independent" facts in the world have a certain inexplicable quality of consistency.
For example, if one agrees to meet one's friend in two hours, then that friend mysteriously appears at the right place at the right time, even though that friend was not actually "real" insofar as one did not perceive him at the time that the plans were being made. In order to address this issue, Berkeley introduces the concept of the mind of God. As Philonus says: "Don't I acknowledge a twofold state of things, the one copied or natural, the other copied-from and eternal? The former was created in time; the latter existed from everlasting in the mind of God" (58). This means that the basic consistency of the "external" world can be accounted for by the fact that there is always a perceiver present within any given situation—and that perceiver would be God. Independent from the perception of God, material reality would not exist; but independently from the perception of any given human being, material reality will perhaps continue to exist, insofar as the individual person himself only exists because he is an object in the perception of
God.
2. In Defense of Common Sense In general, the argument can be made that Berkeley is quite correct to assign to common sense the role he does when conducting metaphysics. This is because as the very name of the discipline suggests, "metaphysics" is meant to explore what is and is not real beyond the parameters of the physical world. What this implies, though, is that metaphysics must remain understandable from the perspective of physical, ordinary human existence. Otherwise, there would be little to differentiate metaphysics from sheer fantasy. For example, anyone can say that there exists a dimension of reality that almost no one can really perceive. However, this remains completely irrelevant unless it can be demonstrated that that dimension of reality has a real and fundamental bearing on the way that the vast majority of people always already live. In this context, it is quite appropriate that both of the participants in Berkeley's dialogue agree to answer to common sense. This is necessary for the practice of all good philosophy and metaphysics. The critical question that remains, however, has to do with what exactly constitutes common sense, and what constitutes a kind of ideological or cultural overlay that people have begun to take for granted as "common sense" but which in truth makes no real sense whatsoever. It is this kind of disagreement that is evident in Berkeley's work: both of the characters begin with the conviction that their own perspectives are congruent with common sense; but as the dialogue progresses, Hylas is increasingly compelled to acknowledge that his own perspective is not in line with common sense at all. In the broadest terms, Berkeley's metaphysics is based on two main observations.
The first is that the material world clearly does not exist (except in a state of hypothetical abstraction) insofar as one does not immediately perceive it; and the second is that the material world nevertheless exhibits the kind of consistency that one would expect from an independently existing object. To put it bluntly, this state of affairs is mysterious: it is difficult to understand this disjunction between what is immediately perceived and what would seem to be the rational truth. Berkeley resolves this contradiction not by concluding that immediate perception (or common sense) is mistaken but rather by making an analogy: in the same way that the individual material world exists as the result of any given person, the material world as such exists because of the perception of God. This implies that the world is in fact objectively real, in the sense that its existence does not depend on the perception of any one human being; but it is also not objectively real, insofar as it cannot exists without the gaze of the one true
Perceiver. Again, this is all based on extrapolations from premises derived from simple common sense; and in truth, one does not really know where else to begin. For example, one could perhaps draw the conclusion that since the world has a certain independent consistency, it must be materially and objectively real. However, from the perspective of the kind of analysis being conducted here, this line of thought has the character of a non sequitur. More specifically: the very concept of objective reality (i.e. reality independent from perception) has no correlate in anything actually experienced by real human beings. In this sense, the materialist vision is in fact lacking in common sense; it entails a leap of faith that is divorced from existential reality. Moreover, it is clear enough that common sense should in fact be held as a fundamental criterion for evaluating a metaphysical vision. This is for the simple reason that insofar as such a vision does not meet the standard of common sense, it would be more or less indistinguishable from outright madness.
Conclusion
In summary, this essay has consisted of a discussion and evaluation of the role of common sense in a work by the philosopher Berkeley. It has been suggested here that common sense plays a very important role in this work, and that this role is in fact quite appropriate. This is because what Berkeley means by "common sense" is nothing other than the basic principle that a metaphysical vision must have some recognizable connection with the lives that people actually live within the context of everyday, material existence. Interestingly, Berkeley's argument is precisely that materialism has no such connection but is in fact nothing other than an abstraction from what is actually perceived. It would difficult to argue against him on this point.