Other editions of book Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous

Deeply original, inspiring to some, abhorrent to others, George Berkeley’s philosophy of immaterialism is still influential three hundred years after the publication of his most widely read book, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous. Berkeley published the Dialogues because of the unenthusiastic reception of his Principles of Human Knowledge in 1710. He hoped the use of the dialogue format would win a more favorable hearing, but unfortunately for Berkeley, the response was every bit as scathing as the reception of his previous work. In recent decades, Berkeley’s work has been recognized as an excellent introduction to the English philosophy of the eighteenth century, and to philosophy in general. This edition of the dialogues is accessibly organized by David Hilbert and John Perry.

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

George Berkeley also known as Bishop Berkeley was an 18th century philosopher. His theory of "immaterialism" was later referred to as subjective idealism. This theory, summed up in his dictum, "Esse est percipi", states that individuals can only directly know sensation and ideas of objects not abstractions such as matter. Berkeley wrote A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713). Berkeley used the characters of Philonous and Hylas to represent himself and John Locke. Three important concepts discussed in the Three Dialogues are perceptual relativity, the conceivability/master argument, and Berkeley's phenomenalism.

First published in 1713, this work was designed as a vivid and persuasive presentation of the remarkable picture of reality that Berkeley had first presented two years earlier in his Principles of Human Knowledge. His central claim there, as here, was that physical things consist of nothing but ideas in minds--that the world is not material but mental. Berkeley uses this thesis as the ground for a new argument for the existence of God, and the dialogue form enables him to raise and respond to many of the natural objections to his position. The text printed in this volume is that of the 1734 edition of the Dialogues.