Bunge-New Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous

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New Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous

Mario Bunge

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 15, No. 2. (Dec., 1954), pp. 192-199.

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NEW DIALOGUES BETWEEN HYLAS AND PHILONOUSFOREWORD

The Three Dialogues between Hyl as and Philonou s were written by GeorgeBerkeley in 1713 as a popular exposition of his no less fam ous TreatiseConcerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, published three yearsearlier. Since then, the basic philosophical ideas of t he Bishop of Cloynedo not seem to have been satisfactorily refuted-although the y have beenand are still being abun dantly criticized. The most usual argument againstBerkeley's idealistic empiricism is still the stick employed by Molihre toconvince Pyrrhon ists. Of course, the argument of p ractice is historicallyimp ortant and psychologically effective-but, after all, it is along the lineof Berkeley's ideas, its success being thu s a t the same time a paradoxicaltriumph of his own empiricism.It is probable that one reason why no conclusive logical argumentsagainst Berkeleianism seem to have been given, is th a t most of the B ishop'sopponents, when thinking of refuting him, tacitly accept tha t solely ex-perience-for instance, experience with sticks-is able to verify or falsifya proposition. For, as long as it is believed that only facts can compete

with facts ; th a t reason is solely able to reflect or a t most t o combine senseda ta , being incapable of crea tion; and as long as one clings to the beliefth at there cannot be rational proofs of empirical facts, it is only naturalth at Berkeley's chains of thoug hts should remain substantially untouched.The Bishop knew it too well, and that is why he based his system on thenegation of abs trac t thought, on the thesis th at abs tract ideas are nothingbut vices of language.The present dialogues are an endeavor to refute Berkeley's philosophyfrom a new standpoint. They are offered as an homage to his astuteness,the occasion of th e second centenary of his dea th, in 1953.

THE FIRST DIALOGUEPHILONOUS.ood morrow, Hylas: I did not expect to find you alive.We have not seen each other for centuries.HYLAS.T o be exact, for two hundred and forty years. By the bye: Howdo you explain it that, notwithstanding, we have continued existing?PHILONOUS.OUknow tha t th e age of philosophies must be measuredin centuries, not in years.HYLAS.did not mean t ha t, bu t the following: We have not perceivedeach other during more th an two centuries; nevertheless, each of us is

_ certain tha t the other has been alive during tha t lapse of time.PHILONOUS.OWI see what you mean. But your irony is out of place.192


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The distinc tive axiom of my philosophy is To be is to perceive or to be per-ceived. I did not perceive you, nor did you perceive me during that time;but you have perceived other things, an d so have I-therefore, we haveboth existed.HYLAS.Allow me t o dwell on this. I did no t see you, nor did you perceiveme; so that you can be certain that you have existed, but you could notassure tha t I was alive, say, one hundred years ago.PHILO NO US.hy not? I am verifying it now. If I had not seen you alive,I could not maintain it w ith certainty. Bu t I am seeing you now, and sinceI absolutely rely on my senses, I assure it.

HYLAS.Yes, you verify th a t now. Bu t i t has not been enough for you tosee me again in order to know that I have been alive one century ago: thisknowledge was not contained within your perceptions, because senses donot make inferences. It is a product of reasoning.PHILONOUS.gran t it. B ut , instead of speaking abo ut rational infer-ences, I would prefer to speak about sequences of images. I do not find itdifficult to imagine th a t you have existed one hundred years ago-or, forthat matter, to imagine an hippogriph.HYLAS.Of course YOU can imagine it, but you cannot demonstrate itunless you are able t o ascend from images to concepts, because no sequenceof images will ever make a proof. This is just why we form concepts andperform inferences: in order to know and to prove whenever the evidencesof the senses are not enough to know and to prove-and the y never are.PHILONOUS.ould YO U prove, perhaps, the fact that you were alive onecentury ago, without resorting to evidences of an historical sort?HYLAS.Certainly, though not by purely logical means. In order to turnit in to the result of an inference, I need one more premise besides Hylasexisted in 1763 and exists now, in 1963-the la tter being true according toyour own criterion of tru th , since it has been warranted by the senses.

PHILONOUS.hat is that new premise you need?HYLAS.A law of nature known by induc tion from numberless singularcases, namely, tha t the life cycle of every individual is unin terrupted. I nthis way, the logical demonstration that I was alive in 1853 reduces itselfto a simple syllogism.PHILONOUS.must avow that this assumption, which you wrongly calla law of nature , was beneath my inference. Of course, I will not call it alaw of natu re, but a rule ordained by th e eternal Mind .HYLAS.Be tha t as it may , the ne t result of our conversation is th a t reasonis not only able to reflect sensible things, but is also capable of proving, ora t least suggesting, th e existence of empirical fac ts otherwise unknow n byimmediate perception. Such is the case with the fact expressed in thesentence Hylas was alive one century ago-which I would call a rationaltruth of fact.


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PHILONOUS.ethinks I agree. But, in return, you must avow that itwas not pure logic which gave us this result, since you had to use a so-called law of nature.HYLAS.acknowledge it with pleasure, because I am not for a sharpdichotomy between theory and experiment. It was not pure logic whichgave us th a t result; bu t it was a non-empirical procedure-profiting, ofcourse, from previous experience and being an experience itself-whereinth e laws of thought bring togethe r facts and laws of nature. B ut le t usreturn to our arguhent.PHILONOUS.We had come to agree th at I must accept as a truth t ha tHyla s existed i n 1863,notwithstanding th e fact th at i t did not pass throughmy senses.HYLAS. hat was it. Now, if you admit it, you will have to avow thatthe famous saying tha t the intellect contains nothing th a t ha s previouslynot been in the senses, is at least partially untrue. In other words, youmust acknowledge th a t reason is a kind of practice capable of creatingthings-things of reason, or ideal objects which, of course may refer tosensible things.PHILONOUS.low m y friend. A single instance does no t sufEce to confirma theory.HYLA S. u t it is enough to disprove a theory-yours, for instance. Be-sides, if you wish I can add a host of cases showing th a t we cannot dispensewith ideal constructs unperceivable or a s ye t unperceived, existing in th eouter reality or in thought alone.PHILONOUS.will con tent myself with a couple of samples.HYLAS.First, neither you nor anybody else can perceive the facts thatoccurred millions of years ago, as reporte d by geology or by paleontology-which reports, inciden tally, are believed by the petroleum companies.Second, physics, astronomy and other sciences are engaged in makingpred ictions of fu ture events, of events known by us if only probably, butin any case anticipating perception-and even , as in the case of scientificwarfare, annihilating perception.PHILONOUS.own there is a great deal in what you say. But you mustgive me time to look about me, and recollect myself. If you do not mind,we will meet again tomorrow morning.HYLAS.Agreed.

THE SECOND DIALOGUEPHILONOUS.beg your pardon, Hylas, for not m eeting you sooner. Allthis morning I have been trying-alas! unsuccessfully-to refute yourcontention that th e proofs of reason ma y be as accep table as the evidencesof the senses, and t ha t even creations of though t m ay be a s ha rd a s facts.HYLAS.I expected it .


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NEW DIALOGUESETWEENH ~ A S PHILONOUSND 195PHILONOUS.till, you did not convince me that we are able to form

abstract ideas.HYLAS.Nevertheless, it is an empirical fact that you cannot avoid em-

ploying abstract ideas, such as existence, being, idea, all, none, etc.-espe-cially when trying to convey the abstraction that abstraction is a fiction.

PHILONOUS.Well, I might concede to you that we are able to formabstract ideas. But I hold that we derive them all from perceptions. To bemore precise, mind can elaborate the raw material offered by the senses,but it cannot create new things, it cannot make objects that are unperceiv-able in principle.

HYLAS.YOU orget that we agreed yesterday that not every idea has aprevious existence in immediate perception. Remember, this was your casewith HyZas existed in 1853.

PHILONOUS.es, but that idea might have arisen from the senses, if onlyI had had a chance of seeing you one hundred years ago. Moreover, youmust avow that the ideas of existence and being, which you deem to beabstract, are in any case derived by a sort of distillation of an enormousaggregate of concrete ideas of existent beings.

HYLAS.Naturally, I agree with you, and I am glad to detect a little germof historical reasoning in you. This is just how most abstract ideas areformed: by a long distillation-though not a smooth one. But this is notthe case with all abstract ideas: some are pure, though not free creationsof the human mind--even when they arise in the endeavor to grasp con-crete things.

PHILONOUS.o I hear well, Hylas? Are you defending spirit?HYLAS.never was his enemy. It was you who denied the existence of

abstract ideas and, in general, the possibility for mind of creating newideas without previously passing through experience-thus reducing yourfamous nous to a poor little thing.

PHILONOUS.t will not be long before you accuse me of atheism.HYLAS. O be sure, I could do it. Think only of the imperfections of

your God, who has neither the attributes of materiality nor of abstractthinking. But let us leave theology aside: I do not wish an easy victoryover you. I accuse you of being an inconsistent empiricist, because youdo not understand that abstract thinking is an activity, an experience. AndI accuse you of being an inconsistent idealist, because you do not under-stand that mental activity is able to create new objects, things that arenot to be found in perception.PHILONOUS.ray, give me a single instance of these ideal objects notdeveloped from perceptions and moreover, as you would say, not having amaterial counterpart.

H n ~ s .Mathematics is full of such entities not corresponding to anyobjective reality but which, nevertheless, are auxiliary instruments in the


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labor of explaining and mastering the world. Not to mention higher mathe-matics, let me only recall imaginary numbers. Or, better, an even simplerobject, the square root of two, or any other irrational number, which youwould never obtain by measurement, by perception.PHILONOUS.s far as I am concerned, these inventions might as wellnot exist. You know, I struggled against such absurdities long ago.HYLAS.I remember: You maintained that they were not only meaning-less but also harmful-by the way, there you have two nice abstract con-cepts, which you have employed hundreds of times: meaningless andharmful. Still, as you ought to know, events have demonstrated that irra-

tional numbers are one of the prides of reason, and that imaginary numbersare nearly as useful and practical as real ones.PHILONOUS. they cannot passour arguments remain very poor ifbeyond the inventions of the analysts.HYLAS.DOnot worry. You may have plenty of abstract ideas outside ofmathematics and logic. You always employ them: design, eternity, identity,whole, .. .The trouble with you, Philonous, is that you move so freely onthe plane of abstractions that you do not notice i t and take them forgranted.PHILONOUS.erhaps a detailed historical investigation could show thatthey are really not new ideas, but mere refinements and combinations ofpercepts.HYLAS.would not advise it: history is precisely the most effective de-stroyer of errors. For instance, it is history that shows how concrete singu-lars become abstract universals, and how the latter enable us to discoverand even to make new sensible things. But let us not go astray. I tried toconvince you before that there are abstract ideas not made up of percep-tions and lacking a material counterpart.PHILONOUS.ight.HYLAS.NOWI wish to remind you that, conversely, there are real thingsthat can solely be grasped by abstraction. I mean species, wholes and struc-tures, of which perception and even image provide us with only partialaccounts. For instance, you cannot perceive the Irish people, or democracy,or the human species. Nor can you see or smell order, law, prosperity andwhat not. Of course, you understand them all on the basis of percepts andwith the aid of images; but they are, none the less, abstract ideas corre-sponding, this time, to objective wholes.PHILONOUS.suggest that we,do not discuss my deep political convic-

tions. Why do not we return to logic?HYLAS.With delight. Since you feel so sure about your logic, allow meto put the following question: How do you know that perceptions are thesole ultimate and authentic source of knowledge, the sole factory of humanknowledge and the sole guarantee of reality?


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NEW DIALOGUES ETWEENHYLASAND PHILONOUS 197PHILONOUS.roceeding along empirical lines, I have found that this

knowledge, and that one, and a third, they all derive from sense experience.HYLAS.I very much doubt that you have actually proceeded that way.But, for the sake of discussion, I will assume that every knowledge stemsfrom a corresponding percept; that every singular cognition derives froma corresponding experience-which is in itself singular, unless you shouldhold that experience is capable of yielding universals-

PHILONOUS.od forbid!HYLAS.Well, then I further ask: Whence comes this new knowledge,

this universal judgment which you take for true, namely The source of allknowledge is experience?

PHILONOUS.am not sure that I have understood you.HYLAS.said that , for the sake of discussion, I might grant that everysingular knowledge comes from experience. But whence comes your knowl-edge that all knowledge comes, came and will come from sense experience?Does this new knowledge originate in experience too?

PHILONOUS.avow that your argument embarrasses me. I should havedispensed with such general maxims, in the same way as I excluded abstractideas. But, then, what would have remained of my teachings?

HYLAS.Nothing. And this is just Q.E.D.-that your entire system isfalse, because i t relies on a contradictio in adjecto.PHILONOUS.O not abuse me in Latin, please.

HYLAS.I will explain that to you, but to morrow, if you please. I shallbe glad to meet you again at about the same time.

PHILONOUS.will not fail to attend you.THE THIRD DIALOGUE

HYLAS.Tell me, Philonous, what are the fruits of yesterday's medita-tions?

PHILONOUS.found that you were right in suggesting that the first axiomof empiricism-The sole source of knowledge is experience-is an abstractidea and, to make things worse, partially untrue.

HYLAS.And self-contradictory, as I told you yesterday uiith a Latinjargon. In effect, the starting-point of empiricism-as of every other phil-osophy-is not experience but a universal judgment, so that empiricismstarts denying abstraction in abstract terms, with which it destroys itself.

PHILONOUS.hus far I am forced to avow. But I challenge you to provethe falsity of my principle To be is to perceive or to be perceived.

HYLAS.AS far as I remember, I did it in our first dialogue. But, sinceyou are now more used to abstractions, I will give you more refined argu-ments. In the first place, notice that you cannot maintain that saying onempirical grounds any longer, since we experience singulars only, neveruniversals.


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PHILONOUS.agree.HYLAS.My new proof runs as follows: If you admit that you are able to

conceive at least one abstract idea, an idea not immediately derived fromthe senses--an idea by definition imperceptible and unimaginable-thenyour famous principle is done with.

PHILONOUS.do believe now that I have always played with abstractideas, but still I do not see your point.

HYLAS.That concession of yours implies two things. First, a t leastsometimes~while ou are making abstractions, while you are working with, concepts-you exist without being conscious of your sense impressions.And this destroys your esse est percipere. Second, granting the existence ofabstract ideas you concede that not every thing consists in being perceived,since abstractions are unperceivable. And this does away with your esseest percipi.

PHILONOUS.am forced to own it. But this new concession would demandonly a slight change in my system: from now on I will say that existence isidentical with any faculty of the mind.

HYLAS.YOU re wrong in supposing that you will manage to save yourimmaterialism after so many concessions as you have made.

PHILONOUS.hy not? So far, I have only admitted theses concerningmind.H a ~ s .hat is sufficient. As soon as you admit-as you have done it-that not every thing consists in being perceived; and as soon as you acceptthe validity of theoretical proof, you are forced to admit at least the possi-bility of theoretically demonstrating the existence of things out of the mind,that is to say, the reality of the extramental world. Whereas before yourconcessions, this possibility was ruled out.

PHILONOUS.should agree with such a possibility. But you know howlong a stretch there is between possibility and act.

HYLAS.Let us try. You have come to agree that reason is not passiveand not confined to coordinating sense data, but is also able to createabstract ideas, and theories containing such abstract ideas.

PHILONOUS.do.HYLAS.NOW,some of those theories, most of them, are designed to give

account of experience. Thus, it is a fact that there are theories of matter,of life, of mind, and even theories of theories.

PHILONOUS.es. But why could reality not be a product of theoreticalactivity?

HYLAS.NO,YOU cannot envisage the possibility of converting to objec-tive idealism. It is true that every true theory enriches the previouslyexisting reality. But not every theory is true.

PHILONOUS.t is a truism that the number of wrong theories is by fargreater than that of true theories.


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HYLAS.And that is jus t one of m y theoretical proofs of t he existence ofan independent outer world. First, if to think were the same as to exist,most people would not exist. Second, error among the few chosen oneswould be unknown, and everybody would be a sage.PHILONOUS.must own tha t th at is not th e case.HYLAS.Th is lack of complete overlapping or harmony between thoughtsand things; this fact that disagreement between thinking and its objectsis more frequent tha n the corresponding agreement, suffices to prove th a tthought is not the same as m atter. T h a t there is a reality, existing out ofth e mind, and which we are pleased to call m atte r.PHILONOUS.never expected to see unsuccessful theories of m at te r usedto prove the reality of m atte r.HYLAS.n so far a s our theories of m atte r fail, they thereby demonstrateth e reality of m at te r; and in so far as they succeed, they demonstrate t h a twe are able to understand the world surrounding us.PHILONOUS.must confess th a t the mere applicability of the concepts oftruth and error proves that reality and its theoretical reflections are notidentical.HYLAS.Then, it seems to me t h at I have succeeded in destroying yourbasic principles one by one.PHILONOUS.own th at you have. I am now convinced that experience

is not th e sole source of knowledge, and t hat there a re things beyond ourperceptions, images and concepts. Only one question now troubles my soul:W hat has become of th e om nipresent, eternal Mind , which knows andcomprehends all things?HYLAS.f my memory is still faithful after so many years, your fav oriteargument ran as follows: I know by experience th at there are other m indsexterior to m y own; and, since every thing exists in some mind, there mus tbe a Mind wherein all minds exist.PHILONOUS.xactly.H a a s . But you have agreed today that some things exist out of mind,

so the very basis of your a rgum ent is gone. As to your argument based onth e supposed passivity of the mind, which passivity would require anexternal mover, it fell long ago, as soon as you conceded th a t minds cancreate new objecta of their own.PF~ILONOUS.ou have satisfied me, Hylaa. I acknowledge it, and I think

I shall withdraw until some next centenary.MARIO BUNGE.

Bunge-New Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous

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