Hylas objects to Philonous' idealism by claiming that on his view there is no way to distinguish between veridical appearances and illusions. In other words, idealism implies that the danger than Macbeth sees before his eyes but cannot clutch is just as real as the dagger he uses to kill Duncan. Is this a valid objection? How successful is Philonous' response?
Philonous’ idealistic view of reality completely turns Hylas’ whole world on its head. To understand Hylas’ objection though, we must first understand the idea Hylas is objecting to: idealism. Philonous claims that reality and therefore all qualities within an object are perceived. Secondary qualities, defined as qualities perceived by the mind, are to Philonous, the only quality an object possesses. Philonous proves this argument against many objections, but leaves Hylas unconvinced. One of his most sticking objections is that under idealism and Philonous’ philosophy, ideas perceived through illusions and visions (from either sickness or dreams) are treated and perceived the same way all other perceptions are. Hylas then points out that if there is no difference in perception, it is impossible to distinguish between the two. Specifically he says, “What difference is there between real things and chimeras formed by the imagination or by visions of a dream…?” in the third dialogue. This is a valid objection to make because thus far, Philonous has failed to answer the question of mental illness and fevered visionary illusions. He makes the claim that everything that exists is perceived, but fails to explain how we can perceive things that don’t actually exist. Hylas’ objection therefore, is valid because he brings up a real-world problem that Philnous has not responded to yet.
ReplyDeleteIn Philonous’ rebuttal to the objection, he does finally draw that distinction between visions and reality. Visions, imaginings and other hallucinations are very “faint and indistinct.” These hazy images depend on our will to first imagine them up and then, hold onto them over time (notice how you almost always forget your dreams). A real thing, perceived by us but not invented by our imagination, has distinct and clear qualities that do not fade or change depending on our will. These real things are invented and imprinted on us by another spirit, god, and therefore do not rely on our will. Also in imaginings and dreams, the things we perceive show a clear difference from our regular reality meaning “there is no danger of confounding these.”
Philonous response is valid for most dreams and illusions because, yes it is true, it is hard to hold on to our perceptions of them after they are gone, so he seems to respond properly to the objection. Clear and distinct perceptions of things are required to prove their existence. Philonous isn’t saying that this imagining doesn’t exist at all, but he is saying it only exists as a dream in your head, since it doesn’t have the same qualities as real, existing objects. Everything that exists is perceived, but not everything perceived exists in the same way. I do think it is worth mentioning that there are some people with severe conditions who truly feel, remember and perceive their illusions, even though we know they are not true. These people are stuck in their illusion and don’t really forget about them, if anything, real life seems like an illusion. I think it would be smart for Philonous to reply to this objection, but it does not completely destroy his argument for regular dreams or imaginings.
Much of Berkeley’s three dialogues between Hylas and Philonous is centered around Philonous’ defense of idealism against Hylas’ many objections. Simply, idealism is the philosophical notion that existence depends solely on perception—an object cannot exist without being perceived. Hylas initially presents a major critique of this argument in the first dialogue, where he contends what one perceives as real and what one perceives as an illusion are equally valid in terms of reality. For example, Hylas would argue that the artificial danger that Macbeth feels is just as valid as the dagger he uses to kill Duncan. But obviously, the dagger has far more serious ramifications when compared to the feeling of danger, rendering Philonous’ argument nonsensical. Hylas raises this objection to question the coherence of idealist philosophy when applied to “real” situations. Take the following hypothetical situation: two people are calling for the same ambulance. One person has just fallen off of a three-story building, and the other is severely intoxicated thinking that their roof is about to fall down on them. The former expresses moderate urgency, while the latter is hysterically begging for immediate help, but the ambulance can only choose one to save. The unambiguously moral response would be for the ambulance to attempt to save the former, even though the other party “feels” a higher sense of danger. Hylas would maintain that Philonous’ idealist philosophy would save the hysterical person, sacrificing a human life in the process.
ReplyDeleteIn response, Philonous argues that in an idealist framework, reality is fundamentally concerned with perceptions and ideas, rather than physical objects. The things we perceive, including the tangible (dagger) and the intangible (Macbeth’s intangible danger) both exist within the realm of conscious experience. Therefore, the distinction between veridical appearances and illusions is not relevant within an idealist philosophy as both are products of the mind. But Philonous does draw the line somewhere, stating that “faint and indistinct” experiences in the mind do not carry as much truth as concrete perception. Therefore, if Macbeth were to experience a weary sense of danger, it would not be as important as the concrete sight of a dagger.
Ultimately, Philonous’ response is valid but leaves his argument less strong than it previously was. It seems as though he notices a gaping hole in his argument, and tweaks his argument in order to close the hole. Sure, concrete perception of real objects surpasses hazy thoughts in the mind, but what defines concrete perception? Isn’t the whole point of idealism that there are no real objects? In the ambulance example, both parties feel a concrete sense of impending danger—the intoxicated person’s thoughts are not hazy. Philonous’ response is unable to account for this disconnect, indicating that his idealist argument is far from infallible.
In George Berkeley’s book, The Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, he presents several dialogues in which Philonous defends idealism, the view that only minds and ideas exist, while Hylas attempts to refute this position by defending the existence of the material world. Hylas argues that Idealism cannot distinguish between illusions and veridical appearances. This means that Idealism does not allow you to know whether a perception is truthful or an illusion. The Macbeth Dagger thought experiment, inspired by the story of Macbeth, is introduced to determine the distinction between reality and perception to disprove Idealism. This thought experiment is from the story of Macbeth and compares the danger of the hallucination of a dagger with the danger of a real dagger.
ReplyDeleteContrary to what Hylas would state, up until you feel the blade, the difference between the dagger and the hallucination of the dagger is nothing. They both have the same probabilities and possibilities that they can hurt you so the danger is the same. Once you can perceive a distinction, you can determine the probabilities and possibilities to now be different. For example, if you are on a game show and you have to choose between two briefcases, one containing one million dollars, and the other containing one dollar. The probability of each containing a million dollars is 50%, even if there is an answer the game show host knows about, from your perspective, each briefcase contains the same probabilities and possibilities as the other briefcase. After it is revealed to you which amount of money was in each briefcase, the probabilities become definite and there becomes only one possibility. This can be applied to the Macbeth dagger situation, because based on what you perceive, while you are looking at each of them, they both have a 50% chance of being veridical and a 50% chance of being illusory, but when one stabs you and the other one passes through your chest, you then discover that the outcomes are now definite. This means that the dangers would both be equal until you can perceive a difference between the two objects.
In Berkeley’s Dialogues, one of Hylas' objections to idealism is that people’s perceptions can be false, thus proving the existence of an objective reality beyond our minds. As an example, he says that someone might believe that the moon is only a few inches wide because it appears very small when they look at it from earth. Also, he gives the example of an oar, saying that when rowing, someone might believe that their oar is actually bent when it is submerged in water. Because both of these interpretations would obviously be incorrect, perception alone is not the only factor in reality.
ReplyDeletePhilonous responds by giving the principle that each person’s immediate perception of the world around them is individually correct, but the interpretation and the conclusions made as a result of that perception may or may not be incorrect. In the context of Hylas’ examples, he says that as long as the moon increases in size the closer that one gets to it, the initial perception is wrong, and perception alone can establishes the moon’s actual size. In the case of the oar, a person's perception of a bent oar in the water is correct, but their assumption that the oar remains bent when pulled out of the water is wrong. Someone being able to pull the oar out of the water and seeing its true form shows that idealism can hold true even if some initial perceptions are false.
With this argument, Philonous is correct in terms of his individual examples; however, his arguments are not enough to establish a general rule. For example, his arguments don’t actually describe the way that most people learn information. While our own perception can tell us what refraction is, most people learn the size of the moon in school as an objective fact about reality, not through evaluating their own perceptions of the moon. Second, illusions can still be deceiving. Macbeth’s dagger, though an illusion, was real to him because seeing it persuaded him to kill Duncan. Insofar as illusions can be real and thus reality can appear differently to different people, and insofar as having parameters of objective reality (e.g. floating daggers aren’t real) in terms of physical matter proves illusions false, idealism fails to establish a consistent and coherent idea of reality. Operating only under idealism permits the existence of some illusions, which means that some incorrect and possibly harmful interpretations of the world happen more than under materialism.
Hylas objects to Philonous' version of idealism by claiming that illusions are distinct from reality, yet idealism has no such distinction between the two. Philonous' argument for idealism prioritizes the perception of the universe rather than the material existence of objects. This is somewhat human-centric, as it implies that our perceiving the universe (and later, God) is the only reason why it still exists. To counter this, Hylas targets the issue of a human-centric framework- that individual illusions have no distinction between reality, despite being distinct. Philonous defends his argument by explaining that imagined objects are faint and indistinct, while perceived things are clear and distinct. He explains this thought process using examples such as the shifting perspective while looking at a tower or moon, or the inability to perceive Earth's motion through the cosmos. The root of error is inferring from present perceptions, not the perception itself.
ReplyDeletePhilonous' argument holds up poorly. Hylas is correct in his description of not knowing the nature of things he uses, such as ink and paper. We are only able to distinguish our perceptions of objects and not objects themselves, like identifying a real dagger or a fake dagger. Philonous, in his rebuttal, simply claims that it would be ridiculous for no one to have the ability to distinguish one object from another, yet never actually explains why. With Hylas largely unrefuted, it appears that in an idealist framework, we have no way to distinguish between material objects or illusions. Philonous provides no strong argument as to how to distinguish between illusion and reality.12