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Title: Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (Oxford Philosophical Texts) by George Berkeley, Jonathan Dancy ISBN: 0-19-875149-4 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: April, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Another standard of basic philosophy
Comment: As with all philosophy, it is full of sytange and intrique ideas that you really can't prove or disprove. The way I think of the argument is that reality is like a video game or dream. We all "know" that the an object such as a table doesn't really "exist" in a video game. Its only a perception. We we turn off the video game or wake up from a dream, the table is no longer percieved, so it no longer "exists" in external reality. So in reality, how does a table continue to exist when we leave the room(no longer perceive it)? You can't really prove it does ever exist when your not percieving it. Berkeley thinks that it continues to exist as an idea in the mind of God. This God is all-knowing and everywhere at all times. He maintains the constancy of reality. In my opinion, this is a very strong theistic argument.
Rating: 5
Summary: Bishop George Berkeley - we salute you !
Comment: The attitude of most reviewers to the philosophical thoery proposed by Bishop George Berkeley seems to be 'jolly good show old boy, wonderful stuff, shame it's just not true, and written so beautifully, more's the pity.'
Given that all the reviewers are so utterly convinced that matter and the everyday world are really real, what else could be expected ? Berkeley's philosphy is so great and so stunning precisely because it directly attacks this great bedrock assumption of the ordinary human mind. And contrary to popular belief, his attack does not fail - it merely falls on deaf ears or blind eyes.
As per Berkeley, only God's mind and the ideas within it have real existence. Fortunately for us, included within the ideas in God's mind are the idea of an external world and the idea of human minds. Our human minds involuntarily produce the idea of the external world (God has so programmed our minds), but voluntarily produce other lesser ideas (ie personal dreams and fantasies and various private thoughts). Berkeley does not deny that we experience a 'real' world, he just denies that it has any reality apart from being mentally perceived. His theory cannot be proved by pure reason (since faith in the existence of God is an absolute must for a person to accept the Bishop's views)and in this sense his theory is speculative, but equally it cannot be disproved, since in one way or another we can never separate the external world from our perception of it.
On the other side, critics of Berkeley, absolutely have to deal with Hume's destruction of the external world through the use of pure reason. Following Hume, Locke's positing of 'matter' i.e. an independently existing external world, is shown to be just as speculative as Berkeley's positing of Mind. So where does that leave the critics ?
And supporters of Berkeley, can take heart from the fact that Kant who famously reconciled Hume and Berkeley, in fact does no more (and certainly no less) than fill in the gaps and supply the missing terms to the Bishop's argument. Is it really such a very great leap to go from Kant's noumenal realm and synthetic a priori, to the existence and workings of a benevolent God ? Some would say that rightly understood, the two are identical. If you ask me, Kant, quite cunningly smuggled the Bishop in through the front gate, by the simple ruse of dressing him up in a non-theological guise - much more palatable, you understand, and of course, much less threatening.
Of course, all the above exposition, is strictly for the religious sceptics.
For the believers, its three centuries on, and the good Bishop continues to rock our world. Rock on, good sir, rock on.
Rating: 4
Summary: Superb edition, flawed work.
Comment: A fantasic edition like all these Oxfords. It has a long introduction detailing Berkeley's life and works, and numerous notes throughout the work itself.
As for the work itself it's a recasting of Berkeley's earlier work the Principles into dialogue form. Quite what the point of this was since the Principles were already easy to read is unclear, (although a case could be made that the Dialogues require less prior knowledge of Locke than the Principles did and are therefore a better introductory work) but it's difficult to be sorry that he did as he writes the dialogue form so well, easily the best since Plato, and in my opinion probably marginally better than Plato. He handles the character who he's trying to refute much better than Plato ever did. Unfortunately his ideas aren't on a level with Plato's. As with the Principles his writing sweeps you up and it almost convinces you that perhaps matter doesn't exist and the mind is all there is, but once again take a step back and the flaws become all too apparent.
Berkeley's too important to ignore though, and besides his books are a pleasure to read. You can't do better than this edition.
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