Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous

George Berkeley was a prominent British empiricist (in addition to John Locke and David Hume) who later in life became an ordained Bishop of Cloyne (Ireland) in the Anglican Church. Berkeley was born in Ireland and educated at Trinity College Dublin. While a fellow at Trinity College, Berkeley composed three significant works: An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision (1709), A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713). Berkeley was a public intellectual and had made the acquaintance of other eminent thinkers and writers of the day including Richard Steel, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, and Joseph Addison.

Berkeley’s primary impetus for proposing the concept of idealism was to respond directly to John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). The dialogues between Philonous and Hylas are effectively an argument against this work, with Hylas acting as a stand-in for Locke. Berkeley ultimately believed that Locke’s arguments, specifically his theory of abstract ideas, created a well-spring for skepticism. This text is Berkeley’s first attempt at wrestling with and refuting Locke’s theory. Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous is a further attempt at both refuting Locke and providing what Berkeley believed was a more coherent view of how humans attain knowledge.