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?
To summarize, in the final part of Berkley’s three dialogues Philonous has successfully proven that objects only exist in the mind and not in reality. Hylas tries to throw anything against this idea to see if it will stick and stumbles into a very interesting idea. Because Philonous claims, objects that exist in the mind are the realest that those objects can be Hylas wonders why “visions of a dream” are not equally real.
ReplyDeleteI will evaluate the validity of this objection after Philonous’ response because I think that will give the best holitstic view of the issue. Philonous claims that ideas formed by imagination are weaker and less focused than those that we perceive. For example in a dream we are unable to read or to steal from Descartes, we cannot conjure and image of a thousand sided object in our mind that is different from a thousand and one sided object. Therefore, we cannot imagine as distinctly as we perceive. He also claims that these ideas are dependent on will. We see a chilliagon in our mind because we choose to imagine it. As opposed to the heat of a fire, which we cannot choose to feel or not to feel (we can only choose how close or far from a fire we are). Finally, Philonous claims that however, Hylas distinguishes between dream and reality is through perceived differences.
So is this response successful? Kind of. It is able to dispel dreams and things we actively imagine like $10 extra dollars in my wallet however it has a hard time of dispelling that which we do not perceive as unreal. What does that mean? The best example come from the movie Perfect Blue. The main character of the movie is an up and coming TV star however the events she films for the show begin to line up with her real life and she start blurring the lines between which life is fictional and which is real. In terms of Philonous’ clarification, she perceives everything, clearly, as if it were real, and in a way, that she cannot distinguish it from reality.
This seems like a death sentence for Philonous. It proves that there are situations in which “reality” and perceived reality are different enough to matter but experienced the same way by one person. If Philonous cannot distinguish between a play he is acting in and reality (due to a psychotic break), it seems as though his epistemology is flawed.
This would all be very bad for Philonous if materialism were able to offer a better alternative, however it cannot. When we believe that, something is real and cannot distinguish it from reality it becomes our reality. If I eat mild curry and it’s spicy to me it’s now spicy curry. All in all Hylas offers a valiant effort however Philonous’ idealism remains valid.
Philonous' idealism has established that all stems from the mind. However, Hylas has a major question: if all holds equal in our mind, how are we to distinguish between reality and illusions? This is a valid objection and reminds me of Descartes' dreaming argument. Humans are known to be deceived by their dreaming all the time; it is an inherent aspect of human imperfection. How are we to ever know if we are dreaming or truly awake?
ReplyDeletePhilonous has an interesting response. He states that the ideas formed by the imagination - or illusions - are entirely dependent on human will. On top of that, these illusions are dim, irregular, and confused. On the other hand, the reality we perceive from our senses is vivid and clear, and human will plays no role in reality: what we perceive is being imprinted on our mind from a spirit distinct from us. In that regard, there is a clear difference between reality and illusions: reality is clear and vivid, while illusions are the opposite.
Philonous' response is unsuccessful. Not only is it vague, but it fails to address some exceptions. Have we not all had dreams which we are entirely convinced are reality because of how vivid and clear they are? In the moment of these vivid dreams, are we able to deduce whether we are dreaming? The answer is no, so how are we to ever know that these were dreams in the first place? Also, by distinguishing between reality and illusion, Philonous is addressing that illusion exists. However, earlier, Philonous asserted that appearance and reality are all the same (to exist is to be perceived). In a world where appearance and reality are the same, illusion cannot exist because illusion is inherently false, while in this world, what appears to be true has to be true. Therefore, Philonous actually ends up contradicting himself in his response.