Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous

“It is not enough, that we see and feel, that we taste and smell a thing. Its true nature, its absolute external entity, is still concealed. For, though it be the fiction of our own brain, we have made it inaccessible to all our faculties. Sense is fallacious, reason defective.”

George Berkeley critiques the materialist premise that an object has some inherent property that escapes sensory perception. In the passage, he is speaking somewhat ironically, especially in the concluding axiom. His criticism here suggests that in order to fully accept the materialist view, one must suspend disbelief and devalue sensory experiences of reality.

“The sublime notion of a God, and the comfortable expectation of immortality, do naturally arise from a close and methodical application of thought.”

Berkeley argues here that believing in God is not irrational or unscientific. Instead, he argues that reason and logic can be employed to justify the belief in God. This claim is somewhat contrary to Enlightenment philosophy, which often prioritized the scientific method over theism.

“The senses perceive nothing which they do not perceive immediately: for they make no inferences. The deducing therefore of causes or occasions from effects and appearances, which alone are perceived by sense, entirely relates to reason.”

Spoken by Philonous, this passage delineates between immediate perception (that which is perceived directly by the senses) and mediated perception, which involves the use of reason. In Philonous’s view, deduction cannot be used to prove the independent existence of matter, since deduction relies on the mind and not the senses.