The philosopher George Berkeley in nine minutes. Based on Berkeley's "Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous." Philonous explains to Hylas why matter doesn't exist. Hylas becomes a skeptic and then an immaterialist.
The original dialogues take place on three beautiful mornings in a garden setting with a fountain nearby. The college bell which "rings for prayers" occurs at the end of one of the dialogues. I did my best to include references to the original setting. But the book remains far better than the movie for literary as well as philosophical reasons.
dude, it took watching this crazy animation for me to fully understand the point made by Berkeley, and for that, I question my IQ. Thanks tho, this really helped
Glad to help! (It's normal to not understand the great philosophy books the first time or two. Happens to all of us. The books grow with the reading, so to speak.)
thanks so much for this. ive been trying to read this for school, but ive been barely able to follow along cuz Berkeley/whoever translated it insisted on writing it in such a horrible and confusing way. feels like im reading shakespeare with the amount of outdated words used. but yeah thanks i get it now!
Lol @ the loser sign at 1:09 A true honest and strict empiricist/ skeptic is a solipsist and idealist. Determinism and metaphysical realism require extra justification.
There is time, so that not everything happens "at once" and space so that not everything happens "right here" and there is matter, because without matter, there would be neither space nor time. Without this, nothing could exist. Minds could not experience anything without physical reality.
I believe spacetime exists outside the minds. It is there, we are a part of it in our lifetime, but beyond us spacetime does not have a size nor a duration. These are qualities it gains through the existence of an observer. Without him, space and time simply are, what has happened, is happening and will happen already are because they follow a completely rational set or rules, an omnipresent logic (what we unravel as physics, chemistry etc.) It does not take a long time nor a short time, it simply is.
Besides the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, which has been validated, matter in John Locke's sense is faulty. The appearance of composition is caused by frozen flashes of energy under the mathematical influence of neutrinos. Quarks do have mass, but the picture and nature of physical form and structure at the most mechanistic level shows us that matter is not a 'blot of clay' that encompasses area. That is why atheists such as Michael Ruse, prefer to be called mechanists rather than materialists.
This is so complicated. Anyone willing to write a shurt summary of what is being said here? The unnatural voices make it even harder to undestand for me because English isn't my first language. What i have caught is that Philonous basically says: the things we perceive are the only reality. Therefore everyone's reality can be different (with his example about the colorblind person). This is why matter does not exist. Because matter does not exist, everyone is a sceptic. If I interpreted this completely wrong, someone please tell me.
Philonous says that which we perceive is real. He also says that that which is neither perceived nor perceiving is not real. Hylas begins with an idea borrowed from John Locke: that there is an unperceived and imperceivable substance, which is called matter. Philonous argues that there is not, and that the view that there is leads to skepticism. Hylas starts off thinking Philonous is a skeptic because he denies matter. Later he realizes that Philonous is right, and Hylas' materialism leads to skepticism. So he becomes an immaterialist, like Philonous. (That left out a lot. I hope it was enough to help!)
TeacherOfPhilosophy how does materialism lead to sceptism? I am sorry, I know I am coming off like a complete fool - I'm new to filosophy. Thank you very much for your quick response though!
Glad to help. Ok, Philonous' case is something like this: Skepticism is the view that what we perceive is not real. Hylas' view is that for a thing to be real it must exist outside the mind. He also thinks that what we perceive we perceive directly. However, as Philonous shows, everything we perceive directly only exists in the mind. Since everything we perceive directly exists only in the mind, and since Hylas thinks such things are unreal, his view leads to skepticism. The key premise of Hylas what Philonous rejects is the claim that what is real exists outside the mind. Philonous thinks that what is real exists in the mind. (An alternative approach, taken by Thomas Reid, is to reject the premise that what we perceive we perceive directly.) Continued:
(Continued) How does Philonous show that everything we perceive directly exists only in the mind? I've noticed three ways Philonous makes this case: 1. The sense of a great heat and the sense of a great pain are indistinguishable sensations for us; they present themselves as one and the same feeling. But since the pain exists in the mind, the heat must also exist in rather than outside of the mind. So the quality of heat is mind-dependent. 2. There are differences in sensation of the same object. A sick person and a well person, for example, perceive things differently. This is true of colors, tastes, and so on. But it is also true of size, shape, weight, location, etc. So these qualities are also mind-dependent. 3. Hylas tries to think of some property of an object which exists outside of our perception. He can't. It turns out that every property of matter exists only in the mind. That leaves Hylas believing in some incomprehensible, unthinkable, unknowable matter which we have no reason to believe exists. It's better, Philonous tells him, to think that what we perceive exists and recognize that reality is fundamentally mental.
Your quick responses are great. So let me get this right: Philonous says things only exist our minds, our minds interprets what we percieve. He clarifies this with his examples that every object exists inside our perception. For instance, colorblind people perceive colors differently. This is why what we percieve directly exists only in the mind. This way of thinking by Philonous is immaterialism. Hylas thinks what we perceive, we perceive directly. Hylas says things can only be real if the exist OUT of our minds. Philonous tries to make Hylas think of an object which exists out of our perception, which he can't. So materialsm leads to sceptism, because materialists can't prove things exist out of our minds. Which makes them think that what we percieve is not real - scepticism. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Hey I'm relatively new to philosophy and I'm fairly turned around with many concepts. I might be taking this information wrong but, if the mind is separate from matter, then how can material things such as drugs, affect it? And how to chemicals in the brain change how we act if the mind isn't part of an "exterior world"? Apologies if this is a stupid question.
+HereMeWaz Good questions! I might be able to hazard a reply on Berkeley's behalf--just my guess at what HIS answer would be. For a start, let's be sure to ask the right question. The mind isn't separate from matter at all! That would be Descartes' view. Berkeley's view is that there IS no matter, as the philosophers define matter: All we perceive is in the mind. (And we're not talking about the mind of an individual human, mind you; we're talking about all minds, including most importantly God's mind.) So the question isn't how matter separate from the mind affects the mind. The question is how, if all matter is included in mind, a change of matter can affect the mind. And now we might be in a good position to answer the question. When you manipulate matter and affect the mind, typically all you're doing is affecting perception by manipulating what is perceived. You can affect your perception of the living room by moving the furniture, and you can affect perception by using perception-altering drugs. It's pretty much the same thing, if all you're doing is altering what is perceived. But if you're altering the mind itself and not only what it perceives, then you're doing something more; you're altering the mind itself. But it is not matter that alters the mind--not matter as the philosophers define it. All matter is within the mind; if you find some way of manipulating what is in the mind in a way that affects what the mind perceives, then you must understand that it is mind itself altering the mind. And this is also a pretty everyday thing. A belief is not made of matter. But a belief affects my state of mind; it is a mental thing altering the mind. Mind-altering drugs can do the same, and no more.
Philonous claims that size and color are always different but we can measure these propeprties and rule out the differences. Also, Philonous claims that since human minds perceive therefore god is perceiving which does not follow. The term immaterial today means irrelevant.
It seems like pretty obviously fallacious to conclude that just because all our sensations of qualia exist only in the mind that there is no mind-independent reality responsible for shaping those sensations.
Correct. That is why Berkeley concludes that from other premises as well. He thinks that what we perceive we perceive _directly_ . And everything we perceive directly is a qualium. And qualia are only in the mind. Therefore everything perceived is in the mind alone. There is, however, a reality independent of _our_ minds which is responsible for the world--the mind of God.
@@TeacherOfPhilosophy I really find that to be a non sequitur. I mean, yes, the qualia are in the mind alone, but that does not mean that there is no external objective world that is delivering the stimulus that creates the sensations. But I guess I am just repeating my previous objection. What other premises does Berkley work from?
No, _that_ follows for sure: All things perceived are perceived directly, and all things perceived directly are qualia, and qualia are only in the mind, so all things perceived are in the mind. It does _not_ follow directly that there is nothing outside the mind. That requires a separate inference from Ockham's Razor: All things perceived are in the mind, and we have no evidence for something outside the mind and no idea of such an "inconceivable somewhat;" therefore there is no such thing. For the record, I reject one of Berkeley's premises: Following Thomas Reid, I think what we perceive we perceive _indirectly_ .
Yep. (7 years ago, I believe I was in Pakistan and RU-vid was officially banned. I guess when the ban ended and when I was in the USA I didn't happen to remember the question.)
Sock puppets! What a fun way to describe Xtranormal software. Yeah, these cartoons are all a bit of a flop aesthetically. The books are better in every way.
That Berkeley purportedly ‘believed’ in the existence of a god disqualifies him for membership in the ‘religio-philosophical realm’. period. To do so stopped the intellectual development he could have accessed if his thinking hadn't have been so narrowly defined by the context of the culture in which he was compelled to exist to survive, and the religion he was compelled to practice during his youthful and formative years. And that is the truth. (actually, only a component of the Whole Truth.)
Berkeley did believe in God's existence. Now what exactly is a "religio-philoosphical realm"? (I would think you meant people who are either philosophers or theologians, but that category obviously includes people who believe in God. Or you might mean all free and rational philosophers, but then why did you include "religio" in the name of the category?) Anyway, why should belief in God disqualify someone from membership in the "religio-philosophical realm?" I think you suggest as a reason that cultural religious influences stifle intellectual development or something like that. But I'm not sure that's true; I think, for a start, it depends on the culture and the religion. Also, there may be forms of cultural atheism that are comparably stifling--perhaps Soviet Russia, for example.
I call it the religio-philosophical realm because most, but not all, of the world of humanity does not seem to be competent enough to discern the difference between data masquerading as truth, and data which is truth. I call it the religio-philosophical realm because, regardless of whatever BS you, or I, or another individual thinks, says, writes, rules, and/or does to infer differently, not verifiable repeatable proof of a god or gods, spiritualism, magic, miracles, or supernatural anythings, for the entire history of humankind, has been found to exist. That takes care of why I call it the 'religio-'. People who 'believe' in any of the aforementioned, then, are unqualified as members in the group of people who strive to elucidate the truth. Secular philosophers, then, are the only people who endeavor to elucidate the truth of reality without the hindrance of these ridiculously fanciful, and intellectually vacuous, human conceptualizations. Due to your reference to Russian Socialism as atheistic, you expose that your narrow-minded interpretation of atheism is what is hindering you, and others who 'believe' the same tripe, from coming to understand the real and remarkable reasons why humans exist upon the face of the globe. What you think is true atheism is actually anti-theistic atheism, not even a comparable cousin to actual atheism. That humans, throughout all of history, have been inveigled into 'believing' that their personal lives will be straightened out by a 'savior from without' is the focus of all 'religions'. Actual atheists realize why humans have come up with so many conceptualizations for those aforementioned entities. The reduction or elimination of personal doubts, and their attendant ugly twin, fear. I don't just 'suggest' that cultural religious influences stifle intellectual development, I state categorically that they are the greatest hindrance to human intellectual development the world has ever seen.
You say that "cultural religious influences" "are the greatest hindrance to human intellectual development the world has ever seen." An interesting conclusion. I'm a little unclear on what premise you mean to support it with. You claim that all religions have caused people to look for a savior from without (to which my Jewish friend from Ricochet.com would probably object, as well as a good many Buddhists and Confucians), and you claim that doubt and fear are the real motives of the religious. But those premises alone don't support your conclusion; there's an unstated premise, and I'm not entirely sure what it is. Would you mind filling me in on what else you're thinking here? (Perhaps that looking for a savior from without keeps us from taking care of ourselves?)
Yes, but only for the accumulation of empirical data, (i.e. truth-by-committee, even a smart committee is still just a committee.). The last increment of 'knowledge' necessary for the clear perception of existence is a personal decision, however an individual wants to call it. Empirical knowledge, coupled with Personally knowing your truth, equals gaining access to the whole truth.
Philonous bought that argument? Hylas was trolling him. Hylas defined god right into existence. Good job Hylas. Seriously though... There is no argument of logic that can prove a god. If god exists, the only way we are going to know is if that god shows up. You might be able to make up valid syllogisms (modal ontological for example) but you can't prove the god by defining it.
