Literary Style and Common Sense in

George Berkeleys Three Dialogues

Between Hylas and Philonous

Mmoire de Master 1 en Etudes anglophones

Prsent sous la direction de Mme Julie NEVEUX
Par
Camille PHILIPPON
Universit de Paris-Sorbonne (Paris-IV)
UFR dAnglais
Anne acadmique 2015-2016

Table of Contents
Table of Contents

Introduction

I Types of styles, a plurality of means for a same purpose : to appeal to ones

common sense.

1.1 Literary moments : captatio benevolentia

1.1.1 The staging of the dialogues : the use of tenses at the beginning of each dialogue, and their
values.

1.1.2 Markers of lyricism.

12

1.1.3 A literary style in order to rewrite The Principles?

15

1.2 Rhetorical moments : the art of convincing.

17

1.2.1 Occurrences of sceptical language.

18

1.2.2 The principle of non contradiction : rearranging information (cleft structures and
extrapositions).

21

1.2.3 The principle of non contradiction: negation and existential structures.

25

1.3 Philosophical moments : drawing a line of thought.

27

1.3.1 Drawing on the tradition of philosophical dialogues? The question of aporetic or non
aporetic language.

28

1.3.2 Modal verbs as markers of a philosophical style.

30

1.3.3 The use of any in the process of Berkeleys philosophical reasoning.

34

II Style and ontology : an implicit definition of immaterialism grounded on a

positivist ontology of lexicon.

36

2.1 Common sense as a core concept of Berkeleys immaterialism and the frame of
concrete entities (non problematic)

36

2.1.1. Common sense as a measuring tool: syntactic structures of oppositions and comparisons.
37
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2.1.2 Common sense as a quality raised to a general principle by Berkeley : its determination and
reference (generic, specific).

40

2.1.3 Berkeleys vision of language through the way common sense (when it is a nominal
syntactic unit) may categorise.

42

2.2 Conceptual organisation, and the frameworks of iconicity : the notion of matter
and its designation.

44

2.2.1 A great variety of terms to designate matter: Berkeleys strategy to present a

44

concept with no real denotation nor extralinguistic referent.

44

2.2.2 The negative ontology of matter : markers of negation associated, in occurrences referring
to it.

48

2.2.3 The use of indefinite determination : renewed attempts to define a concept which stays in
itself indefinite and undefined.

50

2.3 Berkeleys empiricism : a negating and inductive rhetorical process that

pictures immaterialism through its mirror image, by rejecting matter.

52

2.3.1 Only six occurrences of immaterialism , and only in the last pages of the third dialogue :
a concept which hardly dares speak its name.

52

2.3.2 Negative affixes linked to the designation of matter : language as an unreliable tool to
apprehend reality and the rejection of abstract general ideas.

54

2.3.3 Closed interrogative sentences regarding the existence of matter : Berkeleys

56

epistemological monism.

56

III Berkeleys style: between sense and sensibility, in order to frame a certain
definition of a common sense philosophy.

59

3.1 A philosophical style undercover? The characters semiological and

ontological status.

59

3.1.1 Berkeleys characters as linguistic signsand the motivation behind the choice of names. 60
3.1.2 Dialectics at work between Hylas and Philonous in questions and rhetorical questions :
illocutionary force of interrogative and indirect interrogative sentences.

63

3.1.3 Force dynamics in the characters speeches.

65

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3.2 Mimesis and metaphor in Berkeleys style.

68

3.2.1 A visual and mimetic language : esse est percipi.

68

3.2.2 Mimesis in the perspective of a metaphorical statement : to enhance the common features
of experience.

70

3.2.3 A paradoxical use of metaphor, in spite of Berkeleys theoretical rejection of metaphor in

philosophy, and what it might reveal.

72

3.3 Berkeleys language as a language of interoception calling for a hybridity of

style.

74

3.3.1 Kairos in Berkeleys rhetoric and choice of styles.

74

3.3.2 Berkeleys language: intertwining concrete and abstraction.

76

3.3.3 An epistemology based on the experience of interoception : a style that tries to embrace the
unutterable.

78

Conclusion

80

Bibliography

82

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Introduction
Defining style as a concept, when it applies to writings, might appear as a complex task, as the
question of style seems to have been tackled through many different perspectives. Nevertheless, it
may be possible to begin with an attempt of definition concerning this notion, on the basis of
several traditions or schools of thought. Among those traditions, there are what could be called the
dualist views1 , which all state the separability of style and content. There is notably, the concept
developed by Samuel Johnson, who described style and language as "the dress of thought"2 . This
theory implies that style could be removed from a text, just as a garment from one's body, or at
least, that it is something that could be neutral or neutralised. Style would be then a simple
ornament, an embellishment given to one's writings. But style has also been defined as the frame of
thought, as a vehicle or a chosen prism for communication, implying that content would preexist in
the mind, form only being added afterwards3 . Through those dualist views, style is either conceived
as a way of writing or as a mode of expression, only. That being said, if we consider that epistemic
and ontological judgements, originating from perception, are done through language, it appears that
words, are what shapes our interpretation of the world, that is to say, reality as we experience it.
And if language shapes reality, style is then the embodiment of it whenever an act of
communication is performed.

Following this statement, it might be argued that style, rather than being just a dress or a frame, is,
as William Wordsworth phrases it, the "incarnation of thought"4. Therefore, there would be an
identity of style and meaning, and style would be present in all texts as an inherent property.
Nevertheless, if style is the embodied manifestation of thought, a phenomenon understood as an
observable fact

therefore, it is identifiable through several features which constitute what

Meyer Schapiro calls," a constant form"5. Those features, those "symptoms of style", are intrinsic to

LEECH Geoffrey N., SHORT Mick, Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose,
Pearson Education Limited, 2007, pp.13 16.
1

JOHNSON Samuel, The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets; with critical observations on their works,
Volume I, print. by Samuel Etheridge Jr., Charlestown, 1810, p45.
2

LEECH Geoffrey N., SHORT Mick, Style in Fiction, op.cit. p16.

RUTHVEN K.K, Critical Assumptions, Cambridge University Press, 1979, p14.

LANG Berel, Philosophy and the Art of Writing, Studies in Philosophical and Literary Style, Associated
University Press, Inc., 1983, p164.
5

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the phenomenon itself, and are nothing but the inside looking out6 . That is how style might be
perceived, as part of the identity of a text, both as the specific and individual features, peculiar to
the writer's way of using language, and as what enables the categorisation of one's writing, for
example, as literary or philosophical. It means that style as a "standard element"7 , is expected to
take specific features related to one category of writing. As a result, literary style would be the
expressive identity of any writing categorised as literary. This does not mean that there are no
literary features in other genres such as philosophical writings, and viceversa, only, that it is
usually not necessary to take those secondary features into account, in order to define those
writings. However, in philosophy, there is one type of writing that crosses the boundaries of styles,
which is the philosophical dialogue. It chooses the literary genre to present a piece of philosophy,
while also drawing on the tradition of the rhetorical discourse, and the fictional elements have to be
taken into account in order to fully understand what is at stake, and the dialogue's purpose8.

According to this definition, the Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous9 published in
1713, and written by George Berkeley, an empiricist Anglo-Irish philosopher can be seen as a
stylistic hybrid. When it comes to their philosophical content, those dialogues repeat the main
arguments which Berkeley first exposed in a precedent work, using a dry rhetorical and
philosophical style. Berkeley (1685 - 1753), who has known a very prolific period between 1709
and 1713, developed a philosophy of knowledge that he first exposed in his Treatise Concerning
The Principles of Human Knowledge10, published in 1710. In this essay he presents his
immaterialist thesis, which denies any ontological status to matter, refuses its existence, while on
the basis of the argument that to be, is to be perceived he does not deny the reality of bodies,
contrary to what many of his opponents, notably Leibniz, claimed11. It is, thus, a refutation of the
sceptical philosophers, who pretend that the human mind cannot ascertain the reality of bodies,
because abstract ideas are the only things the mind perceives . But it also contains Berkley's main
views on language, as it upholds that language is the source of our misapprehension of the world, an
6

Ibid. p47.

Ibid p37.

STONEHAM,T., Berkeley's World: An Examination of the Three Dialogues,Oxford Uni. Press, 2002, p17.

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and
Atheists, ed. by Jonathan Dancy, Oxford University Press, 1998.
9

10

BERKELEY George, Principles of Human Knowledge, Ed. David R. Wilkins, 2002, Online edition: <http://
www.maths.tcd.ie/~dwilkins/Berkeley/HumanKnowledge/1734/HumKno.pdf>.
11

SOSA Ernest, Essays on the Philosophy of George Berkeley, D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1987, p15.

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inadequate system that limits our knowledge, as it forces us to substitute words for ideas12 . Yet,
because of the poor reception of the Treatise by his contemporaries, Berkeley decided to write the
Three Dialogues, to present his ideas, and prove that immaterialism was a sensible and valid theory
based on common sense. For this reason, even though the concept of common sense is already
mentioned in the Treatise13 , it is in the Three Dialogues and through the dialectical confrontation of
the two characters that Berkeley dwells upon this notion as a fundamental principle, and intends to
assess his theories' validity. In consequence, Berkeley's choice of presenting his philosophy in a
literary genre seems to have had more than a purely stylistic impact, as The Three Dialogues were a
literary success, and therefore played a role in Berkeley's philosophical influence, notably on
continental philosophical movements such as the Circle of Vienna in the first half of the Twentieth
century. But Berkeley's conception of language also had a certain impact on the arts, for example in
Samuel Beckett's work as a playwright who considered as Berkeley did, language as "the greatest
impediment to understanding"14 and played with this belief to create his theatre of the absurd.

That is why this essay will question the extent to which Berkeleys stylistic hybridity in the Three
Dialogues can be related to his immaterialism and common sense epistemology, and to his
philosophy of language.

In order to do so, it will present a typology of the styles at work in the Three Dialogues, this
plurality being seen as a plurality of means for a same purpose, which is to appeal to one's common
sense. It will then focus on the literary, rhetorical and philosophical moments, through various
linguistic and stylistic analyses, notably on the use of tenses, markers of lyricism, syntactic
structures rearranging information and presentative structures, aporetic language and the use of
"any" in Berkeley's reasoning. Secondly, it will study the relation between style and ontology,
stating that the Three Dialogues may expose an implicit definition of immaterialism grounded on a
positivist ontology of lexicon. The main focus will be on the reference to common sense as a
core concept of Berkeley's immaterialism and theory of language and structures related to it, but
also on the conceptual organisation and the frameworks of iconicity, through the concept of matter
and its designation. It will also analyse how Berkeleys empiricism is, in consequence, shown
CHAPMAN Siobhan, ROUTHLEDGE Christopher, Key Thinkers in Linguistics and the Philosophy of
Language, Edinburgh University Press, 2005, p32.
12

13

BERKELEY George, Principles of Human Knowledge, Ed. David R. Wilkins, op.cit., I; XI, pp. 1; 4.

SMITH Frederick N, Beckett and Berkeley: a reconsideration, in BUNING Marius, De RUYTER Danielle,
ENGELBERTS Matthijs, HOUPPERMANS Stef (ed.), Beckett Versus Beckett, Rodopi, Atlanta,1998 p331.
14

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through a negating and inductive rhetorical process that pictures immaterialism through its mirror
image, by rejecting matter. Finally, this essay will offer to define Berkeley's style, as a style between
sense and sensibility, in order to frame his immaterialism. It will then question the use Berkeley
makes of the literary genre, through the semiological and ontological status of the characters, but
also through the use of mimesis and metaphor in his style as well as the very nature of his language
that his style embodies.

I Types of styles, a plurality of means for a same purpose : to appeal to

ones common sense.
One may wonder about Berkeley's purpose in using different types of style in his writing of the
Three Dialogues. This work was designed to counterbalance the poor reception of the Principles, for
which Berkeley had been more ignored than refuted15 . Therefore Berkeley's plurality of styles can
be seen as a part of his strategy to capture the widest possible readership. The necessity was then to
show that his theory complied with what Descartes pretended to be "the best distributed thing in the
world"16, what he called "good sense", but what Berkeley calls following Aristotle "common
sense".

1.1 Literary moments : captatio benevolentia

The literary features and moments that can be found in the Three Dialogues, seem to have been
designed to appeal to the reader's benevolence, that is to say, to introduce Berkeley's ideas to his
favourable attention.

15

WALMSLEY Peter, The Rhetoric of Berkeley's Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p62.

DESCARTES, Ren, Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, 4th Edition, Part One,
Trans. Donald A. Cress, Hackett Publishing Company Inc., 1998, p 1.
16

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1.1.1 The staging of the dialogues : the use of tenses at the beginning of each
dialogue, and their values.
It is possible to remark that Berkeley is careful in staging the context and environment of his
dialogues, but that this staging is also evolving. This is notably visible through certain uses
Berkeley makes of tenses at the beginning of each dialogue.

The use of past tenses such as the preterit, preterit continuous and past perfect, at the beginning
of the First Dialogue, and especially in Hylas's first utterance17, shows the importance given to
the fictionalisation of Berkeley's philosophy, in order to appeal to a readership, from the very
beginning. The use of the past perfect in "were so taken up" (l.3), and of the past continuous in
"was discoursing" (l.4), shows that Berkeley intends to give some fictional depth to his
character's lives, through his handling of past events. The continuous aspect in "was
discoursing" institutes a past landmark which is referred to, through the noun phrase "last night"
(l. 4), whose head word is the common noun "night", preceded by the determiner "last". The
continuous aspect does not give any precise boundaries for the activity of discoursing, and thus,
tends to anchor the present dialogue in a continuum of similar situations, presented as part of the
characters' everyday life, as scholars.

The past perfect occurrence, "were so taken up", refers to a "past in the past, a time further in
the past, seen from the viewpoint of a point of time already in the past"18 . Here, this time
further in the past expresses Hylas's obsession for the conversation he had, viewed from the
point of time where this obsession had actual consequences, as it is exposed just after, through
the preterit forms "could not" (l.4) and "resolved" (l.5), which then have both a tense sequencing
value. Berkeley uses this presentation of Hylas's state of mind, that is to say, the literary process
of characterisation, to build a pretext to introduce the main topic of the dialogue. It is because
Hylas feels agitated and cannot rest his mind, because of what happened the night before, that
he makes the following request to Philonous: "my request is, that you would suffer me to impart
my reflexions to you" (ll.19 - 20). So, through his handling of past tenses in this introductory

17

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit. p. 59: from "It is indeed" to
"a turn in the garden" (ll. 3 - 5).
18

LEECH, Geoffrey, Meaning and the English verb, Pearson Longman, 1971, p73.

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scene, Berkeley motivates the philosophical exchange, giving some psychological features to
Hylas, and by then, gently leads his reader to the main purpose of the dialogue.

There is also some staging of a particular context, in the beginning of the Second Dialogue19,
and again, it is done through the character of Hylas, who represents someone whose beliefs are
evolving, after the First Dialogue, mirroring what a part of the readership might experience.
This is why Berkeley refers to some past exchanges from the First Dialogue, and their
consequences, in the present situation of enunciation. What can be focused on, may be the use
of the past perfect, the present perfect, and some occurrences of present tense, in Hylas's first
two occurrences of speech20. Hylas is referring to the impact his last meeting with Philonous
had on him. He says that his mind "was so filled with [their] late conversation that [he] had not
the leisure to think of the time of the day" (ll. 2-3). The use of the past perfect, is made to
express how, because of a conversation that had happened further in the past, Hylas was not able
to focus on anything else afterwards, and is then currently late to meet Philonous. The past
perfect, making the link with the First Dialogue, reveals the timeline of the dialogues, and
underlines their narrative structure. The preterit in the occurrence "had not" (l.3) has, therefore,
a sequencing value and the present of "I beg", in the complex sentence "I beg your pardon for
not meeting you sooner" (l.1), that precedes Hylas's explanation, is an "event use"21 of the
present. Furthermore, for this last occurrence, the event is not only "simultaneous to the present
act of speaking"22, but this sentence is also a performative utterance, as thereby, in saying so,
Hylas apologises.

In Hylas's second intervention, there is another performative utterance "I assure you" (l.7),
which is used to convince Philonous that what Hylas is saying is a true report of past events,
here again making a link between the previous Dialogue and the current one, creating a
narrative coherence. This is also what the use of the present perfect does in "I have done nothing
ever since I saw you"(l.7), and "have minutely examined the whole series of yesterday's

19

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit. p94.

Ibid. From "I beg your pardon" to "of anything else" (ll. 13); and from "I assure you" to "force my
assent" (ll. 711).
20

21
22

LEECH, Geoffrey, Meaning and the English verb, Pearson Longman, 1971, p9.
Ibid.

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discourse", (ll. 8-9). The present perfect can be described as a "past involving the present"23. On
the one hand, in this context, it involves present, as the period of time mentioned is lasting up to
the present. It makes a connection between a chronological value of the preterit and an event use
of the present, that is to say, between the moment when Hylas last "saw" (l.6) Philonous,
marking the beginning of the reflexion process, and the present moment when he states that
there are "notions" (l.9) he still "consider[s]" (l.11), showing that the reflexion process is still
ongoing. And on the other hand, the past event presented also has results on the present time,
which are that, both Hylas's past and present reflexions upon Philonous's notions "force [his]
assent" (l.11). In the Second Dialogue, the preterit continuous, the present perfect and some
uses of the present tense, in performative utterances, show how Berkeley links the dialogues,
creating a specific chronological and narrative framework for the whole of it.

But eventually, at the beginning of The Third Dialogue24, it is possible to notice that Berkeley
has reduced the presentation of a context to Philonous's first occurrence of speech25 , asking
Hylas about his current state of mind, which is answered by a direct plunge into philosophical
matters.
Indeed, in this final dialogue, the readership is supposed to be already, either supportive of, or
alienated to, Berkeley's immaterialism. Nevertheless, Philonous, through the use of present
perfect, is the one, this time, who is making the link between the previous dialogue and the
current:
"PHILONOUS. Tell me, Hylas, what hath come of yesterdays meditation? Hath it confirmed
you in the views you held when we parted? Or hath it given you cause to change your opinion?"

What is underlined by those three occurrences, is the consequences of a past conversation, on

the present situation. But, more than the narrative coherence that was conveyed in the beginning
of the Second Dialogue, here, what is stressed is the coherence of the process of thinking itself,
showing that Hylas's state of mind is important only as it reflects the progressive submission to
Philonous's arguments, that is to say, to Berkeley's theory.

23

Ibid. p 54.

24

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit, p111.

25

Ibid. From "Tell me Hylas" to "change your opinion" (ll. 1-3).

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Berkeley, presents the progressive adhesion to his views as a natural and logical journey, revealing
how he weaves and intertwines a narrative thread with his thread of thought creating a specific
fictional time setting, giving to his dialogues a literary feature, designed to appeal to his readership's
benevolence.

1.1.2 Markers of lyricism.

Another feature of Berkeley's literary style, which is also meant to attract a readership, is the
presence of some lyricism displayed in some of Philonous's Berkeley's spokesman
occurrences of speech. In the first26 and the second27 dialogue, passages are devoted to a eulogy of
nature, and they are not devoid of a certain lyricism for which markers can be listed and studied. It
may be possible to divide these markers by first focusing on those creating lyricism through an
effect of emphasis and then on those creating lyricism through a process of displacement.

Some figures of speech such as alliterations, repetitions, oxymora, are lyrical markers that have
an effect of emphasis as well as syntactic structures of comparison ( markers of comparisons :
affixes and correlations), the use of demonstrative determiners, and of descriptive and
evaluative adjectives, notably.

Demonstrative determiners are often used in the two lyrical passages of the first two
dialogues, to produce a contrasting effect, between proximal demonstratives and distal
ones: "That purple sky, these wild but sweet notes of birds []", ( First Dialogue, p.59, ll.
8-9); or "Raise now your thoughts from this ball of earth, to all those glorious luminaries
that adorn the arch of heaven []". In those two examples, the purpose may be to underline
the difference between what belongs to the earthly world and what is part of the celestial
one, while at the same time making a link between the two, the earthly world being the
created one, and as such, it mirrors, although imperfectly, the other, but still, according to
this eulogy, deserves praise as a creation.

26

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit, The First Dialogue, p 59: from
"Can there be" to "dispose us to" (ll.7 - 14).
BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit, The Second Dialogue: from
"Look! are not the fields" p 96, (ll 4 - 40) to "by all men of sense", p97 (ll 1 - 9).
27

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An alliteration of the /s/ sound can be found in the First Dialogue: "and a thousand
nameless beauties of nature inspire the soul with secret transports " (p.59, ll. 10 11). It
stresses the idea, conveyed by the verb "inspire", that nature is a powerful muse, which
inspires here the philosopher, who constitutes, thereby a rather poetical figure.

In the two passages, there is a profusion of descriptive and evaluative adjectives used to
describe nature. Many are regrouped around the same lines or follow each other, creating a
list effect. They are used to describe nature as a majestic power, as "a whole system
immense, beautiful, glorious beyond expression" (Second Dialogue, p96 l.3) but which is
also a primitive one that conveys the notion of danger at "the prospect of the wide and deep
ocean, or some huge mountain whose top is lost in the clouds of an old gloomy forest
()", (Second Dialogue, p 96, ll.78).
Those adjectives put the emphasis on nature as overpowering, yet as the example of the
marvel of the divine creation.

This idea is reinforced by the two oxymora, describing nature as being full of an "agreeable
wildness" (Second Dialogue, p96, l.10) and describing the state of mind provoked by the
contemplation of it, as filling the mind "with a pleasing horror" (Second Dialogue, p96, l.
9). They are two noun phrases, built around a common noun, respectively, "wildness" and
"horror", that are preceded by evaluative adjectives, respectively "agreeable" and
"pleasing". These oxymora are created by the hiatus provoked by the antinomic
connotations existing between the nouns and the adjectives that modify them. Thus, these
oxymora stress the sublime qualities of nature and its hybridity as both repulsive and
fascinating.

There are also markers of comparison which give an effect of insistence when it comes to
the marvels displayed by nature, as in "Can there be a pleasanter time of the day, or a more
delightful season of the year" (First Dialogue, p59, ll. 7-8). Both the suffix er on the
adjective "pleasant", and the adverb "more" that modifies the adjective "delightful" create a
relation of evaluation, with a verdict of difference. The judgement is quite radical, and
defines the moment when Hylas and Philonous are in the garden as a perfect one, as what is
induced by the two rhetorical questions, is that in fact there are no pleasanter time, and
there are no more delightful season.
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But the comparison is also realised through another structure, which is the use of the
negative correlation "neithernor" with an infinitive of comparison: "But neither sense nor
imagination are big enough to comprehend the boundless extent" (Second Dialogue, p.
96, ll. 35-36). Here, what is meant is the impotence of the human mind in front of nature as
God's creation of the universe.
It is eventually possible to remark that, in the lyrical passage of the Second Dialogue,
Berkeley uses many exclamative sentences and rhetorical questions with an assertive
illocutionary force, with an effect of repetition, of the intensive adverb "how" or of the
determiner "what" (ll.l 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 25, 26, page 96 and ll. 4 and 6 page 97). Those
structures are what creates the passionate tone attributed to the character of Philonous.

Yet, in the two passages, there are figures of speech that create a lyricism through a process of
displacement such as several metaphors, a personalisation, and hypallages.

It is noticeable that in the passage from the Second Dialogue, Berkeley through Philonous,
personifies the Earth: "To preserve and renew our relish from them is not the veil of night
alternately drawn over her face, and doth she not change her dress with the seasons?" (ll.
11-13). The Earth is turned into a woman, both secretive and sensual, conjuring up the
image of nature as a lover that occasionally grants some favours to her admirers. The
philosopher is then both contemplative as a poet and a lover.

This contemplative figure is underlined by the presence of two hypallages "the solitude of a
garden and tranquility of the morning" (Dialogue 1, p 59, l.13). The one who is indeed
alone and in a quiet mood is the figure of the philosopher that Philonous describes as being
in the garden. Yet, it creates an effect of harmony between the philosopher and his
environment, giving the idea that he has completely merged with nature, so that nature
comes to reflect his state of mind and the landscape becomes a mindscape. Those
hypallages underline the figure of the contemplative philosopher, as having merged with the
landscape.

Finally, there are several metaphors. Those metaphors, present in the passage from the
Second Dialogue are used to create an "indirect lyricism" which means that the feelings are
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expressed through an explicit transcription of the speaker's state of mind 28. The Earth
becomes a "ball of earth " (p.96, l.19); God is referred to as the "Author of Nature" (p96, l.
25), and the sky becomes either "the high arch of heaven" (p.96, l.20) or the "azure
vault" (p96, l.28). The effect produced is to give a shrunken representation of the created
world. The planet Earth becomes a "ball of earth", Berkeley here, playing on the
polysemantism of the word "earth", that can design the material as well as the planet. And
when it comes to the sky, it is also reduced into something which is more graspable, as it
becomes a vault or an arch. And as for God, he is the "Author of nature", and in this
perspective it is his role as a craftsman or as an artisan that is underlined through the
metaphor.
Through those metaphors, the world and nature are presented as well devised systems, that
can be apprehended in some way, but that still overpower man.

Those lyrical passages, making the eulogy of nature and the created world, stress both the tangible
perceptive qualities of the created world that is part of Berkeley's theory while being infused
with a rather passionate tone full of amazement, which do not deny to nature her share of wonder
and mystery. Thereby, the philosopher, embodied by the contemplative Philonous, is presented as
the common man in front of the creation, a position that might encourage a process of identification
from the readership, and that might incline it to feel some sympathy with these views.

1.1.3 A literary style in order to rewrite The Principles?

Could it be considered that, the literary style chosen by Berkeley in some passages of the Three
Dialogues, was only designed to dress up the immaterialist theory he already developed in The
Principles, in order to attract a readership? If it could be assumed that using a literary style to
expose lines of thought related to immaterialism, is a way to "develop and intensify, appeals and
strategies that [are] inchoate in the Principles' form and style"29 nevertheless, the Three Dialogues
are far from being a simple rewriting. What Berkeley explicitly institutes in the Three Dialogues is
the fact that his theory is rooted in the notion of common sense. While in the Principles30 there are
NEVEUX Julie, John Donne, le sentiment dans la langue,Paris, ditions Rue dUlm, Presses de lcole
normale suprieure, 2013, p.139.
28

29

Ibid.

30

BERKELEY George, Principles of Human Knowledge, op.cit. pp. 1, 4, 44 and 47.

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only four occurrences of the noun phrase "common sense", as referring to men's ability, in the Three
Dialogues31 , there are thirteen such occurrences. And it seems that this concept is linked with
Berkeley's choice of a literary style. It is indeed remarkable that Berkeley ends his Three Dialogues
on this very noun phrase, while using a literary device which is the allegory of the fountain (p.143,
ll.14-19). The fountain mirrors what is presented by the character of Philonous as the immutable
trajectory of thought compared to the principle of "gravitation" (l.17) when carefully led by a
sensible philosophical discourse. What Berkeley states here, through Philonous's speech, is that
water is as subjugated to the principle of gravitation, as the mind is subjugated to common sense :
"the same principles which at first view lead to scepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men
back to common sense" (ll.18-19). So the fountain can be seen as the allegory of the power of
common sense as an inescapable principle.

The fountain also embodies Berkeley's aim, which is to draw an indirect path to his philosophy,
something that may be viewed as an initiatory journey. The choice of literary style using figures
of speech based on a process of displacement, such as the allegory of the fountain, or in some other
parts of the text, metaphors, personalisation and hypallages (studied in the previous point) is
what allows Berkeley to design this indirect path.
Furthermore, what such a style institutes, is a particular reading pact. Consequently to Berkeley's
decision to build a fiction, the "experience of the reader"32 is not the same as for a traditional
philosophical treaty. The reader of the Three Dialogues does not only have to interpret and decipher
Berkeley's philosophical ideas. He also has to consider this work as an aesthetic object, as a piece of
fiction where the reading pact, which can be defined as a pact of generosity33, which requires that
on accepts the existence of the opinions belonging to each characters. Furthermore, he has to
acknowledge that in the realm of Berkeley's fictional world, Hylas's ideas are refuted by Philonous's
arguments. Thereby, in accepting this, the reader becomes more permeable to Berkeley's ideas and
then, is more inclined to look favourably on them.

The Three Dialogues' literary style, can be understood as a way for Berkeley to capture his
readership's benevolence, through several strategies that also have an impact on Berkeley's
BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit, p60, p77, p103, 117, 120,
126, 139, 142 and 143.
31

32

SARTRE, Jean Paul, "What is Literature?" and Other Essays, trans. Steven Ungar Harvard University
Press, p60.
33

Ibid. p61.

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argumentation and philosophical content. That being said, the use of literary style is not the only
strategy adopted by Berkeley to defend his immaterialist theory, though the others belong to the
traditional form of the philosophical treaty.

1.2 Rhetorical moments : the art of convincing.

The Three Dialogues are also built around the art of rhetoric, usually defined as the ability to use
"the power of language to persuade and influence others"34. This art can be divided into three types
of speeches, all present in the Three Dialogues.
There is the deliberative speech, which dwells upon ideological positions, and conditions of
feasibility. It is often the prerogative of political speeches, and the arguments are usually grounded
on examples. One example of this deliberative speech can be found in the Third Dialogue, when
Philonous tries to refute the idea of corporeal causes to explain our perceptions, by using the
example of the reference to God in the Scriptures: "Besides, that which to you () seems so
extravagant, is no more than the Holy Scriptures assert in a hundred places" (p.119, l.13 - 15).
There is also, the demonstrative speech, which deals with ethics, that is to say the proper behaviour
to observe, and also deals with good and evil, often concerning one person or a group of people. It
does not dictate a specific choice but is meant to direct one's future choices. It is possible to find an
occurrence of such a speech, in the Third Dialogue, when Philonous advises Hylas about the proper
behaviour to adopt when trying to assess the truth of a philosophical statement: "But to arm you
against all future objections, do but consider that which bears equally hard on two contradictory
opinions, can be a proof against neither", (p. 140, ll. 25-27).

Finally, there is the judiciary speech, which consists in discussing the truth and falsehood of
statements in an open debate, or in contradictory ways and in speaking in charge or in
defence of a theory or an opinion. This speech is what appears the most in the Three Dialogues, as
it draws on the tradition of the Platonic and Aristotelian rhetorics. From the start Berkeley uses it to
underline the validity of his theory represented by Philonous and the absurdity of the antagonistic
view defended by Hylas. It is notably exemplified by the rhetorical trick used by Philonous, in the
First Dialogue, to prove that believing in immaterialism does not mean being a sceptic, as
scepticism was previously defined as the suspension of judgement: "How cometh it to pass then
WILLIAMS, James D (ed.), An Introduction to Classical Rhetoric: Essential Readings, Wiley-Blackwell,
2009, p9.
34

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() that you pronounce me a sceptic ()? Since, for ought you can tell, I am as peremptory in my
denial, as you in your affirmation", (p.61, ll.14-17). Philonous plays with the double definition of
scepticism, which can be either the simple fact of doubting, or a more dogmatic scepticism that
affirms that nothing can be known. What is used there is the syllogism technique, which is one of
the main tools of the judiciary speech, along with the principle of "non-contradiction", which can be
summed up, according to Aristotle, by the formula "a is not non-a".

As Berkeley's rhetoric is mostly made of judiciary speech, it could be interesting to focus, on the
one hand, on the syllogism technique in the Three Dialogues, through the way Philonous defends
his theory against Hylas's accusations of scepticism, by turning Hylas into the greatest of all
sceptics; and on the other hand, on the principle of non contradiction, through the study of the
syntactic devices at work in this particular type of argumentation.

1.2.1 Occurrences of sceptical language.

The occurrences of sceptical language in the Three Dialogues can be found at the beginning of the
Third Dialogue where Hylas's ideas have been ruthlessly refuted by Philonous, leaving Hylas in a
state of wonder and doubt leading him to a radical scepticism, that is to say the affirmation that
nothing can be known: "You may indeed know that fire appears hot, and water fluid: but this is no
more than knowing what sensations are produced in your own mind () Their internal constitution,
their true and real nature, you are utterly in the dark as so to that".35
According to Hylas, if matter does not exist something he was convinced of, by Philonous
and if what exists is nothing but our perceptions, without any substratum on which they might be
grounded, then, what he calls the "real nature" (l.17) of things, cannot be known. Hylas uses here a
syllogism, that can be formalised as: if things have no existence by themselves but only through the
way we perceive them, and as men's judgement is fallible, therefore, nothing can be really known
for sure. The idea that men's judgement is fallible is implicit in Hylas's reasoning, but yet it is
evidenced by the statement he makes when arguing that, "all our opinions are alike vain and
uncertain" (l.4-5). Hylas's syllogism is a false one, as he makes a shortcut pretending that men's
perceptions and men's judgments are the same thing, whereas judgements are drawn from
perceptions, and may be about perceptions, but cannot be said to be perceptions themselves.

35

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit, p111, ll.14-18.

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It might be interesting to notice that sceptical occurrences, attributed to Hylas, are made of false
syllogisms. Therefore, if Hylas appears to have the same argumentative power as Philonous, he only
has the appearance of it, for the faults in his reasonings are easily uncovered.

This characteristic appears as even more salient, when Hylas goes as far as refuting the existence of
corporeal things: "It cannot be denied that we perceive such certain appearances or ideas, but () it
is impossible any real corporeal thing should exist in Nature", (p112, ll.27 - 31).
The syllogism displayed here, is: if what exists is only what we perceive, if what is perceived are
only ideas or appearances (conceived as representations), and as those ideas or appearances are
abstract things, therefore, there are no such things as "real corporeal thing[s]".
Hylas, in this passage, makes a confusion between perception and conception, that is to say between
sensory faculties and human understanding. Furthermore, he draws an ontological statement from
an epistemological one: "And what is more we are not only ignorant of the true nature of things, but
even of their existence", (p.112, ll. 26-27). It is then again, a false syllogism, based on shortcuts
and conceptual confusions, that can be easily targeted.

It is possible to notice a certain pattern in Berkeley's construction of false syllogisms, notably when
this technique is used by Philonous. The argumentative structure is often built around the alternative
use of the conjunctions "if" or "whether" introducing a hypothesis, and the adverb "therefore"
introducing a logical consequence.
It is evidenced by occurrences such as in the First Dialogue when Philonous leads Hylas to define
the notion of sensible things:

"PHILONOUS. This point then is agreed between us That sensible things are those only which
are immediately perceived by sense. You will farther inform me, whether we immediately perceive
by sight anything beside light, and colours, and figures; or by hearing, anything but sounds; by the
palate, anything beside tastes; by the smell, beside odours; or by the touch, more than tangible
qualities.
HYLAS. We do not.
PHILONOUS. It seems, therefore, that if you take away all sensible qualities, there remains
nothing sensible?
HYLAS. I grant it.
PHILONOUS. Sensible things therefore are nothing else but so many sensible qualities, or
combinations of sensible qualities?"36

36

5.

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit, p.62-63, ll. 34 to 40 and ll.1 to

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The syllogism construed by Philonous is that sensible objects are made of sensible qualities, so that
if all sensible qualities are removed there is nothing left. From which he concludes that sensible
things are nothing but a combination of sensible qualities. This syllogism is a false one, because the
conclusion drawn by Philonous is also implied in his first premiss, so that what he wants to prove is
already given as a fact at the beginning of his argumentation.
It shows that the logical appearance of this false syllogism is not based on the content of the
arguments Philonous develops, but on the very structure of his argumentation, in other words the
power of Philonous's demonstration is grounded on the connective elements he uses and on their
inherent power of persuasion when they are skilfully combined.

To complete this, and rather ironically, Hylas, who was the one to accuse Philonous of being a
sceptic in the First Dialogue37 , is now the one who declares himself as being in a "state of
scepticism"(p.113, l.17), in the Third Dialogue. It stresses Berkeley's aim to present Hylas as a
character who constructs false syllogisms, that is to say shaky reasonings, and who in the last
dialogue, ends up contradicting himself. Hylas is shown as being the mere shadow or the caricature
of the Socratic figure that stated, both in Plato's Apology (21d) and Meno (80 d, 1-3) that all he
knows is that he knows nothing. It is evidenced by the following part of his dialogue with
Philonous:

"HYLAS [] But philosophers know better things.

PHILONOUS. You mean, they know that they know nothing.
HYLAS. That is the very peak and perfection of human knowledge."

What was in Plato's works a philosophical trick, is here taken literally by Hylas. Therefore, his false
syllogisms and literal interpretation of Socrates' words, show that if he may draw on the tradition of
the Ancients, nevertheless, he is only able to imperfectly reproduce their rhetorics and embody their
ideas. As a result, it might be possible to put forward the hypothesis that it is part of Berkeley's
strategy to convince his readership, to gift Hylas with imperfect rhetorical skills in order to make
him appear as a fair opponent to Philonous, but without being too convincing. Berkeley makes here

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit, p60, ll.22-23. "Can anything
be more fantastical () or a more manifest piece of scepticism, than to believe there is no such thing as
matter?"
37

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an indirect use of rhetoric, as it is, at least in part, in comparison with the lack of credibility of
Hylas's sceptical rhetoric, that his own opposite arguments, defended by Philonous, appear sensible.

1.2.2 The principle of non contradiction : rearranging information (cleft structures

and extrapositions).
The other main feature of the judiciary speech, which is the most present in Berkeley's rhetoric, is
the use of the principle of non contradiction. One way to analyse this principle could be the study of
structures rearranging information, that is to say, cleft structures and extrapositions.

Cleft structures, which main function is to create a contrastive focus, appear several times
during the two scholars sparring matches. Such matches are construed around patterns of
inference and each contestant's role, in order to invalidate his rival's theory, is to prove that the
patterns of inference he uses are invalid. In other words, one has to prove that the arguments of
the other do not respect the principle of non-contradiction, and are contradictory.
Contrary to Philonous, Hylas states that it is possible to know and apprehend matter, so that
matter is something that has an existence. In the First Dialogue Philonous questions Hylas on
the way he pretends that matter can be conceived.
As Hylas has already admitted that it could be done by our senses, Philonous puts forward the
other way it could be possible to know matter: "I presume then, it was by reflexion and reason
you obtained the idea of it" (p83, ll.38-39).
This cleft structure is a subordinate clause introduced by a zero subordinate conjunction,
organised around the verbal phrase "is", whose head is the verb "be", conjugated at the preterit
tense, third person singular, "it" being the grammatical subject, and "you obtained the idea of it"
being a pseudo-relative clause introduced by a zero pseudo-relative pronoun. It is possible to
reformulate this cleft structure as: "You obtained the idea of it by reflexion and reason". Then it
shows that the focus, "by reflection and reason", has for function to be an adverbial complement
of manner, related to the verb "obtained".
The cleft construction is used here to put the focus on the way matter is supposed to be
apprehended. It is part of Philonous's meticulous strategy of deconstruction as he wants to show
Hylas that matter cannot be apprehended neither by our senses nor by our understanding, in
order to lead him to the conclusion that, if matter is something that exists, it is unknowable, and
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cannot even be conceived. And if matter is an inconceivable concept, then Hylas is led to defend
an absurdity.

Another example of cleft constructions linked to the principle of non contradiction can be found
in the Third Dialogue. Hylas, while having admitted that matter did not exist, argues that
immaterialism is a theory that goes against "the universal sense of mankind" (p.120, ll.4-5).
Philonous answers that immaterialism acknowledges the "reality of sensible things" (p.120, ll.
28), that is to say, what the common man names material substance, without referring to any
kind of substratum, but only to a "sensible body" (l.23). On the contrary, according to
Philonous, it is Hylas's materialism that goes again the common man's apprehension of the
world, as materialism is the belief that sensible things do not only exist as they are perceived,
but that there is an imperceptible substratum, a substance on which these perceptions are built.
Therefore, Philonous states that Hylas, the materialist who denies "the reality of sensible
things", is the one who is most likely to be refuted by the general opinion of mankind: "() but
as it is you who are guilty of that and not I, it follows that in truth their aversion is against
your notions and not mine", (p120, ll.28-29).

The first cleft structure "as it is you who are guilty of that" is a subordinate clause,
introduced by the subordinate conjunction "as", organised around the verbal phrase "is",
preceded by the grammatical subject "it", and followed by the pseudo relative clause "who
are guilty of that", introduced by the pseudo-relative pronoun "who".
In can be reformulated as: "as you are guilty of that". The focus is then, the personal
pronoun "you", and its function is to be subject of the verb "are".
The other cleft structure, is an elliptic one, "not I", that can be reformulated as: "as it is not I
who am guilty of that". It is also a subordinate clause introduced by the conjunction of
subordination "as" , organised around the verbal phrase "is", preceded by the grammatical
subject "it" and followed by the pseudo relative clause "who am guilty of that", introduced
by the pseudo-relative pronoun "who". It can be reformulated as: "as I am not guilty of
that". The focus is the personal pronoun "I", which function is to be subject of the verb
"am".
Those two cleft structures are part of a rhetoric of oppositions, with the opposition of the
personal pronoun "I" to the personal pronoun, "you", and the use of the possessive
determiner "your" as opposed to the possessive pronoun "mine", creating a mirroring effect.
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They put the emphasis on the identification process of the one who would be refuted by the
general opinion, and who is actually contradicting himself.

Extrapositions are to be found in the Three Dialogues particularly when one of the scholars'
judiciary speech comes to an actual judgement, regarding notably the truth or falsehood of a
statement. For example, in the First Dialogue, Hylas pretends that colours are exterior
manifestations, perceived in objects, and that therefore, we perceive something more than
sensible qualities. He makes the difference between apparent colours and real colours. And
according to him, what we see are real colours. Philonous objects that if it so, it might be argued
that reality can vary, as our perception changes with distance or when using such devices as
microscopes:
" And in case we had microscopes, magnifying to any degree; it is certain, that no object
whatsoever viewed through them would appear in the same colour which exhibits to the
naked eye" (p72, ll.3-5).
The extraposed structure, "it is certain, that no object whatsoever viewed through them would
appear in the same colour which exhibits to the naked eye", is part of the main clause, that goes
from "And in case" to "the naked eye", organised around the verbal phrase "is", preceded by the
expletive subject "it". This main clause contains a preposed subordinate clause: "in case we had
microscopes, magnifying to any degree", and the nominal subordinate clause, "that no object
whatsoever viewed through them would appear in the same colour which exhibits to the naked
eye". This subordinate clause is introduced by the subordinating conjunction "that" and
organised around the complex verbal phrase " would appear". It also contains a noun phrase
"no object whatsoever viewed through them" organised around the head "object" which is the
subject of "would appear" but also a subordinate relative clause, "which exhibits to the
naked eye", introduced by the relative pronoun "which", organised around the verbal phrase
"exhibits", and that is complement of the noun "colour".
The non extraposed version of the sentence would be: "that no object whatsoever viewed
through them would appear in the same colour which exhibits to the naked eye, is certain". The
extraposition can be explained, by the length of the semantic subject of "is", but also by the fact
that Philonous wants to stress the idea that what he says to Hylas is certain, and not just a
conjecture. Hence, the change of focus, which is put on the first part of the sentence, which is
the utterance of an ontological judgement about a subject previously discussed. The
extraposition's role in Philonous's argumentation , is to stress the validity and then the non
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contradiction

of what will lead him to the conclusion that colours are purely apparent,

according to what he will later develop in the Second Dialogue, stating that, what appears to
oneself, that is to say what is perceived, is what exists.

In the Third Dialogue, another extraposition has the same purpose to state upon the truth or
falsehood of a statement, but this time concerning an epistemological question. Hylas pretends
that nothing can be known and that the reality of things can never be asserted, and then that:
"No, it is impossible you or any man alive should know it", (p.111, l.21). The clause is
organised around the verbal phrase "is" preceded by the expletive subject "it" and followed by
the nominal subordinate clause "you or any man should know it", introduced by a zero
subordinating conjunction and organised around the complex verbal phrase "should know" . The
non-extraposed version of the sentence would be: "That you or any man alive should know it, is
impossible". The extraposition can be explained by the fact that Hylas answers to a question
Philonous asks him, which is whether it is possible to trust our senses to apprehend reality.
Therefore, the extraposition, changes the focus so that it is put on the evaluation of the degree of
an epistemological possibility, a possibility entirely denied, which is reinforced by the
exclamation "no". The role of the extraposition, here again, is to put the emphasis on the logic
of argumentation, here Hylas's, who follows the path of scepticism in this part of the text, and
who then stresses that if nothing can be known, then our perceptions do not give us any proof of
the existence of anything.

Furthermore, the change of focus created by the extraposed structure, is a way to present the
content of the subordinate clause as a fact that has already been admitted, that is to say as
something which is not open for debate. What is debated in all cases is the epistemological or
ontological status of something which is presented as being already implicitly accepted or
refused, as a valid hypothesis.
Thereby, extrapositions in the Three Dialogues, are used in the characters' rhetoric in order to
underline the logical process of argumentation concerning either ontological or epistemological
judgements.

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1.2.3 The principle of non contradiction: negation and existential structures.

That being said, the principle of non contradiction may also be studied through a focus on the use of
negation linked to existential structures.
These structures are used either to assess an ontological status or to refuse it if the secondary
process that is negation intervenes. In the Three Dialogues, they are part of Berkeley's judiciary
rhetoric, as several of them are taking part in the dialectic process of overrunning, what previously
appeared as an irreconcilable contradiction or opposition, between the two scholars' arguments. It is
particularly pregnant when it comes to existential clauses denying ontological status. They notably
appear at the core of a syllogistic reasoning, as part of a strategy of affirmation/concession, which
respects the principle of non contradiction.

In the First Dialogue, Hylas accuses Philonous of being out of his sense, when pretending that there
is no such thing as matter. Therefore, Philonous's speeches are meant to defend himself against
those attacks and to prove that his theory is rational, while showing that he does not brace himself
against an open debate on the question: "That there is no such thing as what philosophers call
material substance, I am seriously persuaded"(p. 60, ll. 18-19).
"That there is no such thing as what philosophers call material substance" is a bare existential
clause, as it contains only the dummy "there", the verb "be", and a displaced subject. As such it is
not possible to reformulate the clause in a basic version without turning it into something non
grammatical38: *What philosophers call material substance is not.
This existential clause is introduced by the conjunction of subordination "that, so that it can be
remarked that this clause, is a relative nominal clause, which function is to be the pre-posed object
of the complex verbal phrase "am persuaded". The negator "no", which could be said to be a
predeterminer as it is placed before the determiner "such", has scope over the noun "thing" which is
the semantic equivalent of the relative clause, "what philosophers call material substance",
introduced by the fused relative pronoun "what", and organised around the verbal phrase "call"
as it is indicated by the conjunction "as", which is here, a marker of identity. The negator "no",
applies to the predicative relation : <thing ( = what philosophers call material substance) / exist>. It
applies then to the whole predication.
HUDDLESTON Rodney, PULLUM Geoffrey K, A Student's Introduction to English Grammar, Cambridge
University Press, 2007, p149-150.
38

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Nevertheless, the structure of the main clause, that is to say the fact that the existential clause is a
preposed object, qualifies the strength of the negative ontological judgement, as, according to the
end-focus structure, the emphasis is put on the subjectivity of this judgement, expressed by the
subject and the verb of the main clause: "I am () persuaded". It shows that the negative
ontological judgement does not pretend to be an absolute truth, but that it is a strong conviction,
therefore, open for debate. It is also evidenced by the following sentence: "but if I were made to see
any thing absurd or sceptical in this, I should then have the same reason to renounce this, that I
imagine I have now to reject the contrary opinion" (p.60, ll. 19-21). This sentence qualifies the
previous one, and the two of them constitute the logic of demonstration that is the basis of the
syllogism technique, which is the establishment of premisses, that logically draw to a certain
conclusion. What can be noticed here, is that the conclusion is presented before the premisses or
conditions of its fulfilment. Furthermore, these conditions take the form of a hypothesis implicitly
negated, "but if I were to" (l.19), meaning that he does not.
Philonous's reasoning is then: If I find there is something absurd about immaterialism, then I would
reject it (l.19-21). But as I do not find anything such as this, I do not reject it (this part of reasoning
is implicit). Therefore, matter does not exist, (l.18-19).
It throws light on the fact that the existential clause is used as a rhetorical tool, in order to convince,
without revealing the whole reasoning.

Another example can be again found in the First Dialogue, where Philonous states that it is
impossible to have a pure intellectual representation of an object; that the mediation of our senses,
to create a sensible representation, is compulsory. Any representation is endowed with a certain
extension, shape, and occupies a certain space, informations that are only given by our sense, so
that, according to Philonous, those representations cannot be pure intellectual ones. And as our
senses are subjective, therefore, those representations of space, movement, and figure are also
subjective. It is contrary to what Hylas affirms, as he notably represents the Lockean theory, that
divides qualities into primary and secondary. The first group is made of objective qualities that have
a real existence, among which, extension, figure and space; the other group is made of subjective
qualities, that only exist within the mind, among which, colours, tastes and smells.
As Philonous pretends that there are indeed all the same, that is to say, only existing within the
mind, Hylas uses one of the rhetorical tools, which is the argument of authority, to question
Philonous's theory:
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"I wonder, Philonous, if what you say be true, why those philosophers who deny the secondary
qualities any real existence, should yet attribute it to the primary. If there is no difference between
them, how can this be accounted for?"39
The existential clause is part of the main clause "If there is no difference between them, how can
this be accounted for" which is organised around the complex verbal phrase "can be done". It
contains the subordinate conditional clause

"if there is no difference between them", which is

introduced by the conjunction of subordination "if" and construed around the verbal phrase "is",
whose head is the verb "be" conjugated at the third person, singular, at the present tense. This
clause"s function is to be the conditional circumstantial complement of the verb "be accounted for".
The negative determiner's scope covers the noun "difference", and applies to the whole predicative
relation : <they/ have differences>. Nevertheless, this statement is qualified by the wh- question
that follows. Hylas's reasoning is: if many philosophers have granted a real existence to primary
qualities, then there has to be a reason to account for that. Therefore, it is not possible for them, not
to be different. So, what is implicitly stated, through Hylas's question, is that there has to be a
reason why qualities have been divided, because of the philosophical authority of the thinkers who
maintained this distinction.
Here again, the negative existential structure is used to mean exactly the contrary of what it could
appear to assess, as it is part of a syllogistical argumentation, that partly rests on an implicit
deduction. In this perspective, those structures show how Berkeley's rhetoric plays with syllogisms,
that is to say with what is ruled by the principle of non contradiction.

1.3 Philosophical moments : drawing a line of thought.

Philosophical texts, as writings, may be ascribed a specific style that Berel Lang coined as "the style
of method", that is to say, a style that is supposed to allow the unveiling of objective and naked
truths. It is a rather paradoxical concept, as the perfection of such a style, would be the achievement
of a "style-less style", the first virtue of method in philosophical texts, being its impersonality, with
the ideal of a transparent language, in the background. Method is meant to be learnt and reproduced,
and its finality is coalescent with its unraveling. Nevertheless, it is possible to conceive a style,

39

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit, p78, ll. 16-17.

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chosen by method, to preside over the unfolding40 of this method, and thus, over the drawing of a
philosophical line of thought.

1.3.1 Drawing on the tradition of philosophical dialogues? The question of aporetic or

non aporetic language.
If Berkeley's Three Dialogues can be defined strictly speaking as a philosophical dialogue as it has
chosen the literary genre to present a piece of philosophy, yet, it may be possible to wonder if it is
only a reactualisation of the Greek tradition of philosophical dialogues, or if it is a reinterpretation
of it. Philosophical dialogues such as Plato's, often use aporetic language, so that there is no final
answer given to the question the dialogue is dealing with. If many opinions and prejudices are
invalidated, the thinking process is never stopped, as the process of seeking truth matters more than
finding truth itself.
Berkeley gives a final answer to the question whether matter exists in the Three Dialogues. The
general movement of this work is not the one of a quest; it is an advocacy for immaterialism and as
the second part of the title stresses it, "in opposition to sceptics and atheists". In this perspective the
Three Dialogues are not aporetical, as Philonous wins the dispute by converting Hylas to his theory;
a conversion which validates the immaterialist theory at the end of the third dialogue.
Nevertheless, there are occurrences of aporetic language in the Three Dialogues, and which could
be seen as intermediate stages of reasoning.
In the First Dialogue, Philonous notably tries to invalidate the idea of a separation between primary
(objective) and secondary (subjective) qualities, a theory already tackled in our last point41. In order
to do so, he reviews each group of qualities, and examines whether some can be considered as
objective. He notably takes the example of colours, as Hylas pretends that they are exterior
manifestations of the inherent nature of objects, and that, by consequence, they are real, that is to
say objective. Philonous then mentions the use of a microscope, but also the differences between
humans and animals' eyesight, to prove colours vary when perception varies42 . Hylas eventually
surrenders to his arguments. In this part of the dialogue, Philonous and Hylas at the end of their

LANG BEREL, "The Style of Method: repression and representation in the genealogy of philosophy",in
ECK Caroline, McALLISTER James, VAN DE VALL Rene (ed.), The Question of Style in Philosophy and
the Arts, Cambrdige University Press, 2010, p18-36.
40

41
42

Cf. 1.2.3 The principle of non contradiction: negation and existential structures, p 25.
BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit, p72-73.

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argument about colours, only draw an intermediate conclusion which is that our perception of
objects can vary:
" PHILONOUS. () all other circumstances remaining the same, change but the situation of some
objects, and they shall present different colours to the eye.43
[]
HYLAS. "I own my self entirely satisfied, that they are all equally apparent: and that there is no
such thing as colour really inhering in external bodies ()." 44
The aporia is that if colours are all nothing but apparent, it could mean that objective reality
undergoes variations, which goes against the very definition of the concept, as it would mean that a
given object could be the same and another. This contradiction or logical incompatibility is not
overcome in the First Dialogue. It is only in the Second Dialogue45, that Philonous states that what
is perceived is what exists, that is to say, that reality consists in perception; all human's perceptions
being ultimately ruled by God's perception, which guarantee our shared experience of the world,
what according to Philonous, who supports Berkeley's view is improperly called objective
reality.
Another occurrence of aporia can be found in the Third Dialogue, when Hylas comes with an
objection to Philonous's idea that reality lies in subjective perception. According to Hylas, it can be
stated that if it is so, nobody exactly sees the same thing, leading immaterialism to a conceptual
absurdity. Philonous answers after blaming language for being the cause of an imperfect
translation of our experience that Hylas's objection, if ever valid, would go against both
immaterialism and materialism alike.46
In this part of the text, Philonous does not end the dispute by refuting Hylas's objection, but only
concludes that "which makes equally against two contradictory opinions, can be proof against
neither"47, so that he only neutralises Hylas's argument against him. Therefore, there is temporarily
no satisfactory answer given to what is presented as a conceptual problem by Hylas. In this
perspective, there is an aporia presented by Hylas, which is overcome through a rhetoric sleight of
hand, which consists in objecting to the objection itself.

43

Ibid. p73, ll.12-14.

44

Ibid. p73, ll. 26-28.

45

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit, p94-110.

46

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit, p130, ll. 5-9.

47

Ibid. p130 ll. 21-22.

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As a result, it may be remarked that in the Three Dialogues, aporia are only temporary stages in the
argumentation process, and are reminders of the nature of the philosophical enquiry, as a path
strewn with horns.
This is why Berkeley's Three Dialogues, can be understood as drawing on the tradition of the
philosophical dialogues, but in so far as it borrows some of their features, in order to construe its
own argumentative logic.

1.3.2 Modal verbs as markers of a philosophical style.

What could be understood as indicating philosophical moments is the use of modal verbs. A modal
auxiliary comments on the predicative relation, and it is a way to apprehend a process, which is not
realised but virtualised. Modal verbs are then virtualisation operators which draw an axis from
possibility to necessity. There are two main uses of them : the epistemic modality, when the
enunciator questions the degree of adequacy between the predicative relation and the extralinguistic
situation, and the radical modality, which focuses on the subject and his or her relation to the world.
The radical modality can be divided into two subcategories: the deontic modality, when the
actualisation of the process depends on an exterior pressure or coercion, and the dynamic modality,
when it depends on the subject's own abilities.

Berkeley uses them, in the Three Dialogues, as a way for him to intervene, through Philonous's
arguments and Hylas's objections and defeats, both to prescribe a philosophical path to his
readership and to judge the adequacy or inadequacy of other philosophical theories to reality. As
such, modal verbs help to draw a line of thought throughout the dialogues.
It is notably evidenced in the First Dialogue when Philonous intends to demonstrate to Hylas the
impossibility to conceive the notion of abstract ideas48. His argument is that an object cannot be
represented through a pure intellectual representation, as any representation even if it is only
drawn from imagination uses proprieties usually given by our senses, as it will have a certain
shape and occupy a certain space, thought it is only in our mind. Therefore, according to Philonous,
our representations are always sensible ones.
To argue on this philosophical point, it is noticeable that Philonous and Hylas use several modals
that create a certain rhythm in their dialectical confrontation.

48

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit, p80-81.

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"PHILONOUS. () how doth it follow that because I can pronounce the word motion by itself, I
can form the idea of it in my mind exclusive of body? Or because theorems may be made of
extension and figures, without any mention of great or small or any other sensible mode or quality;
that therefore it is possible such an abstract idea of extension, without any particular size or figure,
or sensible quality should be distinctly formed () in the mind?
But when laying aside the words, they [mathematicians] contemplate the bare ideas, I believe you
will find, they are not the pure abstracted ideas of extension.
HYLAS. But what say you to pure intellect? May not abstract ideas be framed by that faculty?
PHILONOUS. Since I cannot frame abstract idea at all, it is plain, I cannot frame them by the help
of pure intellect, whatsoever faculty you understand by those words.
()
PHILONOUS. And can you think it possible that should really exist in Nature, which implies a
repugnancy in its conception."49
Those modal auxiliaries constitute complex verbal phrases, with the lexical verbs that follow , in
their infinitive forms, seven in the active form, "can pronounce", "can form", "will find", "cannot
frame" (twice), "can think" and "should exist", and three in the passive form, "may be made",
"should be formed", and "may not () be framed". Eight modals are in present tense, and two are at
the preterit form : SHALL + ED.
Three of them are affected by the negation marker NOT.
Each time the negation "NOT" applies to the modal auxiliary. Indeed, what is considered is the
possibility for abstract ideas to exist, something which is asked by Hylas and twice denied by
Philonous.

"Can" (l.1), "can" (l.2), "may not" (l.12) "Cannot" and "cannot"(l.14) and "can"(l.25) are modals
which have a radical use. They all have a dynamic value.
"Can"(l.1)

and "can" (l.2) refer to the possibility for Philonous, as any human being, to

respectively either pronounce a word, or to form an idea. As such it is a commentary

respectively on the predicative relations <I/pronounce> and <I/form>. In other words, what is
commented on is the intrinsic ability of Philonous to utter a word or to conceive, so that, the
two occurrences of "can" have a dynamic value. That being said, what is more precisely
commented on, is the relation existing between the two possibilities, the second occurrence
being the consequence of the first. So that, as it is a rhetorical question in which a negative

49

Ibid. p80, ll. 1-26.

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answer is implied, it might be noticed that the second "can", is semantically derealised, but not
syntactically, even though "could" would be possible. The explanation could be that as
Philonous is summing up Hylas's and other philosopher's theories, he puts the emphasis on the
confidence they have concerning the validity of their ideas.
"May" (l.3), comments on the predicative relation < X/ make (theorems)> that is to say, on the
possibility to create theorems about extension and figures, without mentioning sensible
qualities. It acknowledges the probable existence of such a possibility. It refers to the intrinsic
possibility for an indefinite subject, to make such theorems, so that, "may" has a radical
dynamic value.
"May not"(l.12), refers to what Hylas calls "pure intellect" and comments on the predicative
relation <X/frame (abstract ideas)>. Thus, as this "pure intellect" is supposed to be a faculty of a
subject, "may not" questions the possibility of such a subject gifted of this faculty to frame
abstract ideas. As such, "may not" is a modal with a radical dynamic value.
The two utterances of "cannot" (l.14), refer to the same predicative relation, <I/frame (abstract
ideas)> which is the possibility to frame abstract ideas, a possibility which is denied by
Philonous. And as according to him this impossibility is related to man's inability to do so, as his
faculties do not allow him to conceive pure abstract representations, therefore, it is a radical
dynamic use.
"Can" (l.25), comments on <you/frame>, that is to say, on Hylas's ability to judge the
probability of existence, of something that cannot be logically conceived, that is to say without
contradiction in its definition . Therefore, if the judgement that Hylas has to utter is in itself an
epistemic one, nevertheless, Philonous questions Hylas's own ability to perform such an
epistemic judgement. As a result, "can" is a modal with radical dynamic use.

"Should" (l.6), "will" (l.10), and "should"(l.25), are modals with an epistemic value.
"Will"(l.10), a present tense that has a future tense value, is a commentary on the predicative
relation <you/find>. It marks the highest degree of probability, as it presents the process as a
logical consequence of the study of some aspects of scientists' and philosophers' theories. There
would be then a logical necessity that whenever one looks at certain part of those theories, as a
consequence one necessarily finds that "bare ideas" are not abstract.
For the occurrence of "should" (l.6), Philonous questions the logical necessity to distinctly form
an abstract idea of extension, just because it is possible to make a theorem about it. He
comments on the adequacy between the predicate < an abstract idea of extension/be formed>,
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and the extralinguistic reality. The value of the preterit is a modal one, as what Philonous wants
to stress is the derealisation of the process, that is to say, that there is no logical necessity, for an
abstract idea of extension to be formed because there is a theorem about it.
For "should" (l.25), what is questioned by Philonous is the probability for abstract ideas to exist
if they cannot be properly conceived. What is questioned then is the adequacy between the
predicate, < thing implying a repugnancy in its conception/ exist>, and the extralinguistic
reality. As a result, "should" is a modal with an epistemic value and the value of the preterit, is
the modal value, that is to say, it stresses the derealisation of the process. Philonous's question,
is in fact a rhetorical question, and what "should" implies is the high improbability for such a
thing to exist. "Should" then underlines that it is logically highly improbable, if not
ontologically impossible for a thing implying a repugnancy in its conception, to exist.

In this particular passage, it is possible to notice, that through the dialectic process created between
Hylas and Philonous, Berkeley draws a progressive line of thought, from reflexions on what is
possible, through the use of radical modals, to conclusions on what therefore exists, through the use
of an epistemic one. In the passage, two such movements can be detected, the first one from line 1
"how doth" to line 11 "ideas of extension"; and the second one, from line 12 "But what say
you" to line 26 "a repugnancy in its conception".
What is also remarkable, is that by denying the existence of abstract ideas in such a way, he is
confronting the cartesian theory according to which to conceive and to imagine are two different
things. According to Descartes, it is possible to conceive a chiliagon50 , which is a geometrical figure
with a thousand edges, whereas it is not possible to imagine it. If one tries to represent such a
geometrical figure in one's mind, it will have a certain number of edges but not a thousand, as this
number overcomes our imagination's ability. Nevertheless, it is still possible to have the concept of
a figure with a thousand edges. It is on this ground that Descartes bases his concept of abstract
ideas. Therefore, Berkeley is implicitly challenging this theory, by arguing that to conceive, "when
laying aside the words"51, necessarily means to have a certain representation in the mind, for even if
a figure cannot be represented through imagination with a thousand edges, nevertheless it is
represented, though imperfectly. So, according to Berkeley, only words are abstract, not ideas
themselves. So, it is in this perspective that modals may be seen as markers of Berkeley's
philosophical style.
50

DESCARTES Ren, Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, op.cit. Meditation Six,p.92.

51

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit, p80, l.9.

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1.3.3 The use of any in the process of Berkeleys philosophical reasoning.

"Any", when used as an indefinite determiner in Berkeley's Three Dialogues, may be also seen as an
important feature of philosophical reasoning, as it is used as a marker of universality.
It is possible to notice that occurrences of "any" are only to be found in the first two dialogues, as it
is mainly in those dialogues that Philonous intends to prove to Hylas that the theory he defends is
not a form of scepticism, but is based on any man's perceptions, as to be is to perceive, and be
perceived. The Third Dialogue , is made up of Hylas's last objections and Philonous's answers, but
the principles of Berkley's theory have already been exposed in the first two dialogues, the third
being a supplementary exchange in order to defuse objections on particular points. Therefore, it
could explain why "any", which marks indetermination and anonymity52, is rather used when
Philonous and Hylas are still fighting over the main and general notions related to immaterialism ,
and the main theses both related to cartesian idealism and to materialism.
That being said, there are two different uses of "any" in the dialogues.
There is the one that focuses on the notion of interchangeability itself.
It is notably evidenced in the First Dialogue, when Philonous and Hylas are arguing about the
nature of colours, as being only apparent and related to subjectivity, or part of a real object,
exterior to our mind and then objective.
"PHILONOUS. () Add to these the experiment of a prism which, separating the
heterogeneous rays of light, alters the colour of any object, and will cause the whitest to appear
of a deep blue or red to the naked eye. And now tell me whether you are still of opinion that
every body hath its true real colour inhering in it ()"53
"Any object" is a noun phrase whose head is the common noun "object" preceded by the
indefinite determiner any. Its function is to be complement of the preposition "of".
What "any" conveys in this occurrence is the idea that there is no definite object which colour
may be changed through the use of a prism. It would happen indifferently to one object or
another, and thus it creates an equivalence between an indefinite number of objects.
What Philonous wants to prove here, is that the variability of colours is a fact that applies as a
general rule. "Any" is used here as part of a process of generalisation. As the character who
represents Berkley's empirism, Philonous bases his arguments on experience and particular
52

COTTE Pierre, Lexplication grammaticale de textes anglais, PUF, 1998, p 220: ["any", marquant]
"lindtermination et lanonymat".
53

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit,p73, l.17-21.

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experiments in order to draw from it several rules and laws. It is this movement that "any"
allows to transcribe.
Another example can be found in the Second Dialogue, when Philonous asks Hylas if words'
denotations can be "changed in any language"54 . "Any language", is a noun phrase whose head
is the common noun "language" preceded by the indefinite determiner "any". Its function is to
be complement of the preposition "in". What is stressed is the indefinite scope to which the
question applies. Philonous is asking Hylas to utter a general statement that could be
indifferently applied to one language or another. It is again a sign that it is a normative speech
that is part of the drawing of a general line of thought.

The other use of "any" does not focus on interchangeability itself, but on this notion when it
applies to a subject, from whom is drawn the whole potential category where all the individual
subjects that have been taken into account have merged in order to form a continuum55.
It is notably evidenced, in the First Dialogue, when Philonous questions Hylas about tastes,
asking him whether he affirms that they exist without the mind. Hylas's answer is:
"Can any man in his senses doubt whether sugar is sweet or wormwood bitter?56"
"Any man" is a noun phrase, whose head is the common noun "man" preceded by the indefinite
determiner "any". It is the subject of the complex verbal phrase "can doubt".
In this occurrence, "any"'s main effect is to mention a category of men, a category in which the
speaker, Hylas, implicitly includes himself. The process of generalisation, is here rather a
process of categorisation, the creation of a concept, the one of sensible men who do not question
the validity of the informations given by their sense of taste. Therefore the common noun "man"
which is usually a count noun, is turned into a non-count one, an ad hoc recategorisation, that is
due to the merging of all the potential men in their senses that would not doubt their ability to
taste, in one single concept. Therefore, what is uncountable is the concept itself.
"Any", is used here to form a concept in order to underline Hylas's argument expressed through
a rhetorical question, and which is that no sensible man would doubt the informations given by
his sense of taste.

54

Ibid. p101, l.15.

55

COTTE Pierre, Lexplication grammaticale de textes anglais, PUF, 1998, p222: [ focalisation sur un
individu] " dont on tire donc toute la classe potentielle, qui fusionne les individus passs en revue, et on cre
un continu".
56

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit,p67, l.21.

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It is in this perspective therefore that "any" could be seen as a marker of universality, as it is used in
order to form either general rules or to create ad hoc concepts, both being part of a normative
speech, which is one aspect of the philosophical discourse.

Those three styles, literary, rhetoric and philosophical, are present in Berkeley's text, in such a way
that Hylas and Philonous's conversation seems to take a turn towards one, then shifts towards
another, sometimes intertwining themselves, so that the whole would appeal to the readership's
benevolence, influence its opinion, convincing it that the line of thought presented is rational and
complies with common sense.

II Style and ontology : an implicit definition of immaterialism

grounded on a positivist ontology of lexicon.
Style in the Three Dialogues reveals a part of Berkeley's metaphysics, which is the essence of being,
that is to say, his ontology. This part will more particularly focus on the way Berkeley implicitly
presents immaterialism through a certain ontology of lexicon. According to him, the ultimate
realities of the world can be perceived57 , and words are what in a way distorts our experience of the
world, so that it is necessary to "draw the curtain of words, to behold the fairest tree of knowledge,
whose fruit is excellent, and within the reach of our hand"58 . It is in this perspective, that Berkeley
could be understood as advocating a positivist ontology of lexicon.

2.1 Common sense as a core concept of Berkeleys immaterialism and the

frame of concrete entities (non problematic)
The movement of those dialogues, is comparable to a meandering river. And as such a river, it aims
at what could be perceived as willing to reach the vast ocean of public approval. That is why one of
Berkeley's corner stone in those Three Dialogues, is the concept of common sense as what can

57

BRYKMAN Genevive, Berkeley et le voile des mots, Vrin, 1993, p26 : "Berkeley manifestera tout la fois
l'enthousiasme positiviste selon lequel les ralits ultimes du monde sont en principe perceptibles ()'"
58

BERKELEY George, Principles of Human Knowledge, XXIV, op.cit. p.9.

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sanctify the validity of his theory. This concept can be viewed in Berkeley's philosophy, as the
frame of concrete entities, spatio-temporal ones, that contrary to abstract entities are perceived as
non problematic.
Common sense could be described as the thoughts, beliefs, desires, etc. that, due to social and
linguistic norms, "we attribute to others in terms of which we then endeavour to characterise their
cognitive and conative states, and to explain, predict, and evaluate their cognition and behaviour".59

2.1.1. Common sense as a measuring tool: syntactic structures of oppositions and

comparisons.
The concept of "common sense", in the Three Dialogues, may be seen as a measuring tool as it is
used as a standard value to assess the validity of one's arguments and judgements about the world.
This evaluation by the yardstick of common sense, is notably evidenced by markers and structures
of either opposition or comparison.
At the beginning of the First Dialogue, when Hylas accuses Philonous of being a sceptic because he
rejects matter, his first argument is to state that the rejection of matter is contrary to the most basic
logic, that is to say, contrary to common sense.
"HYLAS. What! can anything be more fantastical, more repugnant to common sense, or a more
manifest piece of Scepticism, than to believe there is no such thing as matter? 60
"More fantastical, more repugnant () a more manifest piece () than" is a sequel of
correlations marking a process of comparison. They could be reformulated as: "more fantastical
than", "more repugnant () than", and "a more manifest piece () than". They establish a
relationship, delivering a verdict of difference.
"More [fantastical] than" is a correlation, made of the subordinating conjunction "than" and of
the adverb "more" which modifies the evaluative adjective "fantastical". The adjectival phrase
"more fantastical" whose head is the adjective "fantastical" is to be subject complement of
"anything". It is the same pattern for the correlation "more [repugnant] than", which is made of
the subordinating conjunction "than" and of the adverb "more" which modifies the evaluative
adjective "repugnant". The adjectival phrase "more repugnant" whose head is the adjective
"repugnant" is also to be subject complement of "anything".
59

BOGDAN, Radu J. Mind and Common Sense: Philosophical Essays on Common Sense Psychology,
Cambridge University Press, 1991, p3.
60

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit, p.60 ll. 22-24.

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"A more manifest piece of Scepticism than", is also a correlation where "more" is an adverb, which
modifies the evaluative adjective "manifest" and where "than" is a subordinating conjunction.
It is possible to remark that if this sequel of correlations delivers a verdict of difference, comparing
the reject of matter to any other potential hypothesis, nevertheless, there is an equivalence that is
made between the different elements of comparison, which are a fantastical thing, something that is
violating common sense, and a piece of scepticism. In other words what goes against common
sense, is judged by Hylas as both fantastical and a proof of scepticism. Thereby, according to Hylas,
common sense is what determines the potential validity of a theory.

Philonous answers to this statement, without questioning the Hylas's notion of common sense, but
assuming that he will prove that his theory is the one which complies with it and that it is Hylas's
theory which is absurd, that is to say, "repugnant to common sense":
"PHILONOUS. Softly, good Hylas. What if it should prove that you, who hold there is, are, by
virtue of that opinion, a greater sceptic, and maintain more paradoxes and repugnances to common
sense, than I who believe no such thing?"61
"Greater" is made of the evaluative adjective "great" affected by the comparative suffix - ER, which
means that there are two elements compared. In this context the element compared is Hylas, the
element of comparison, the landmark,

is Philonous , and what is evaluated is the degree of

scepticism.
"More [paradoxes and repugnances to common sense] than" is a correlation, made of the
preposition "than" as the relative subordinate clause "who believe no such thing" is introduced
by the relative pronoun "who", that repeats the personal pronoun "I" and the determiner "more"
that comes before two nouns, "paradoxes and repugnances".
What Philonous does, through the use of those comparative structures, is a conceptual Copernican
revolution, as he does not invalidate the common sense as a standard to evaluate one's theory, but
inverts Hylas's argument.
Hylas confronts materialism and immaterialism according to a binary pattern: if one is invalidated
by common sense, the other is therefore validated by it. Whereas Philonous inverts Hylas's
argument according to which immaterialism is "repugnant to common sense" by stating that
materialism is "even more repugnant to common sense", and he introduces a comparison and a
relation of gradation between the two notions, without explicitly concluding that immaterialism is

61

Ibid. p.60, l.25-28.

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by consequence a valid theory. If Hylas uses common sense as a tool which alienates one notion to
the other, Philonous uses it as a tool which allows one notion to be defined by reference to the other,
and creates a cognitive bond between the two.

This conception of common sense as a measuring tool, is also exemplified in the Second Dialogue,
by another occurrence of conceptual Copernican revolution, made by Philonous:
"Men commonly believe that all things are known or perceived by God, because they believe the
being of a God, whereas I on the other side, immediately and necessarily conclude the being of a
God, because all sensible things must be perceived by him."62
"Whereas" is a subordinate conjunction, that is also a marker of opposition or contrast, as it signals
that what precedes the conjunction is opposed to what follows it.
"Men commonly believe that all things are known or perceived by God, because they believe the
being of a God, whereas I on the other side, immediately and necessarily conclude the being of a
God, because all sensible things must be perceived by him" is a main clause organised around the
verbal phrase "believe" whose head is the verge "believe" conjugated in present tense, third person
plural. This structure shows the process of logical inversion, where the verbal noun "the being of a
God", is turned from a premise, as it is presented through the first adverbial clause of cause, to a
conclusion, as it is suggested by the semantism of the lexical verb "conclude" in the adverbial
clause of opposition, where "the being of a God" is the direct object of this verb "conclude".

Those markers and structures of opposition and comparison show how beliefs based on common
sense are not put into question, as in the last structure, where the fact that God is omniscient and
omnipotent is reassessed by Philonous. What he inverts in this particular passage is the logical
process leading to this conclusion.
Therefore, if common sense is taken as the basis to judge one's beliefs, yet, the cognitive process
leading to this belief has to be examined and questioned. Berkeley's aim is then to set a logical line
of thought, within the frame of common sense.

62

Ibid. p97 ll. 34-38.

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2.1.2 Common sense as a quality raised to a general principle by Berkeley : its

determination and reference (generic, specific).
In its wide sense, common sense is what is commonly believed. As such it is a sense whose quality
is to be common; sense as it is shared by the human community. In its narrow sense, it is the belief
of the validity of what does not contradict or violate simple perceptual and introspective
judgements63. It is a certain property, that corresponds to a certain pattern of thought.

It appears that common sense, when apprehended as a quality or property, is used with both its
wide and narrow meaning in the Dialogues, creating different levels of interpretation of this
concept.
It is notably evidenced, in the Second Dialogue, page 103, with the occurrence " a man of
common sense"64 , or in the Third Dialogue, that can be paralleled and contrasted with another
occurrence, which illustrates the same phenomenon, though quite differently: "the common
sense of men"65 .
"A man of common sense" is a noun phrase whose head is the common noun "man" preceded by
the indefinite determiner "a". The determination of the noun "sense" is indefinite, as the noun
phrase is preceded by the determiner zero. What could explain the determination is that the noun
is a non-count one. It refers to a property of man, that is to say to an abstract notion that does
not have any defined boundaries nor can be divided in parts. Nevertheless the prepositional
phrase "of common sense" is complement of the noun "man", so that it suggests a
subcategorisation of men, a subdivision between men gifted with common sense and others. In
this perspective, "common sense" is a quality, something that affects a given category. The
reference of the noun phrase is non generic as it refers to a certain subcategory of men and as
what is targeted is the actual manifestation of the concept of common sense in an individual. But
the reference is not specific as any manifestation of this property in any man would do.

"The common sense of men" is a noun phrase, whose head is the common noun "sense"
preceded by adjectival phrase "common", and the definite determiner "the".

63

LEDWIG Marion, Common Sense: Its History, Method, and Applicability, Peter Lang Publishing, 2007,p18.

64

Ibid. p.103, l.18.

65

Ibid.p.117 l.36.

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The determination of the noun "sense" is definite, which could be explained by the fact that the
construction made up of the determiner "the" and the preposition "of" whose semantic
invariant is the notion of a separation following a preceding contact can be seen as the
reformulation and nominalisation of a clause that would be "men have common sense". As such,
there is a refocalisation and a synthesis of the relation between "men" and common sense",
suggesting that this relation is perceived as rather non problematic.
And, indeed in the context, "the common sense of men" is complement of the preposition "to",
that introduces an opposition between the notion that "to be is to be perceived", and common
sense. Therefore, "the common sense of men" is presented here as a quality, but men are not, as
is the previous occurrence, subdivided into two groups, those with common sense and the
others, but "common sense" is defined as a property of men in general, that is to say of the
whole category of men. The reference of the noun phrase is then a non-generic one, as its
definite determination may indicate it, for it is the common sense restricted specifically to men,
and that it would be possible to imagine other beings gifted with common sense. Yet it is not a
specific reference, as it refers to the common sense of any man, and not of one man in
particular.
As a result, it is possible to notice how "a man of common sense" refers to common sense as an
optional quality belonging to a certain category of men, whereas "the common sense of men"
refers to common sense as the inherent property of any man. Thereby, it appears that in the
Three Dialogues, both wide and narrow definitions of common sense are used by Berkeley,
when common sense is apprehended as a quality.

But what might be seen as a referential blurring is what triggers a process of essentialisation, of
the notion of common sense. What is indeed noticeable, is that Berkeley raises this quality to a
general principle. This vision of common sense is notably exemplified by the three occurrences
of "common sense" page 60, line 23, 27 and 33-34. They present "common sense" as a noun
phrase, whose function is to be complement of the preposition "to". The head of this noun
phrase, is the common noun "sense" preceded by the classifying adjective "common" so that
there is a process of categorisation. The noun is a non-count one, as it is an abstract notion, for
which no specific boundaries nor specific distinctive parts can be found. The determination is
indefinite, as the noun phrase is introduced by determiner zero. The determination can be
explained by the fact that it is a non-count noun, which refers to a notion which is furthermore
apprehended as an epistemological basis, the first principle on what knowledge has to be
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construed and theories assessed. In this passage, from line 14 to line 40, what is at stake is the
validity of the immaterialist theory compared to the materialist one by the yardstick of the
concept of common sense. The reference is therefore generic, as it refers to the whole notion,
the whole category of common sense, and not to a particular manifestation of it.

Berkeley turns a contingent property into an essential one, and goes even further. If common sense
is defined as an essential characteristic and as it was presented in the preceding point has a
standard value, then, it may be said that Berkeley turns this concept into his own criterion of truth,
the first criterion on which knowledge has to be based, and that is in fact the equivalent of the
criteria of Descartes' clarity and distinction's criteria on which the ego cogito is based.
For Berkeley what casts away any temptation of doubting is common sense. As an inherent property
of man, it is the basic principle that has to be found, if it was lost, and on which all knowledge has
to be built.

2.1.3 Berkeleys vision of language through the way common sense (when it is a
nominal syntactic unit) may categorise.
If, in the Three Dialogues, common sense is presented as what should frame the experience of the
world, as such, it also influences Berkeley's vision of language.
According to Roger Brown, "naming an object categorises it, or puts it into an equivalent class"66.
Nouns give an information about gender, that is to say, at least whether the referent is animate or
inanimate. In the case of common sense, as it refers to the faculty of an animate being, it could be
said that its referent is necessarily animate, as an object cannot be gifted with common sense.
The compound noun "common sense" in the Three Dialogues , when used as a noun phrase,
presents a concept that conveys the idea of a universal, shared good sense. As a noun-phrase it
categorises in a particular way, focusing on the concept as a whole, encompassing all its particular
manifestations. In this perspective, it may be interesting to remark how Berkeley, who denies any
ontological status to general, abstract ideas, deals with the apprehension of "common sense" as a
principle. He, indeed presents it as a phenomenon, which is not abstracted from its actual
manifestations, as it is often used in the dialogues as a gauge, to judge whether a given opinion or

TSVERSKY Barbara, Components and categorization in GRINVALD CRAIG Colette, (ed.) Noun Classes
and Categorization: Proceedings of a Symposium on Categorization and Noun Classification, Eugene
Oregon, October 1983, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1986, p63.
66

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statement is an example of common sense reasoning, as it has been studied in our previous point.
Therefore, the concept is not abstracted from its representations, whether they are only alleged or
acknowledged.
When it comes to the occurrence "a man of common sense"67, the noun "common sense" is what
triggers the process of categorisation. It is the classifying element. This occurrence exemplifies
Berkeley's idea that there are only particular manifestations of a given concept or notion. It is also
evidenced by other occurrences such as "the common sense of men"68, "the common sense of the
world"69, and "the common sense of mankind"70 , where the structure made up with the determiner
"the" followed by "of", presents a synthetic relation of possession or attribution, existing between
common sense, perceived as a quality, and the entity to which it applies. In those examples,
common sense is attributed to concrete entities, so that the noun never categorises in the field of
abstraction. It underlines the efforts Berkeley has made to avoid giving any impression of
generalisation, by using structures that may appear redundant as common sense is usually attributed
to men who are supposed to be reasonable beings. The categorisation in those examples might be
seen as tautological. Yet, it reveals Berkeley's argument that, if men are under the illusion that
abstract ideas exists, it is because of language. If nothing exists but particular phenomenons, words
are abstract and general71. So, what is abstract is not the idea itself, but only the process of
conceptualisation which requires the use of abstract tools, and concepts are used in order to assess
the degree of adequacy between a particular object and a given definition. Abstract nouns are then
only epistemological tools and the process of generalisation is nothing but a process of the mind.72
The way the noun "common sense" categorises, that is to say, as it does not only refer to a particular
kind of sense, but creates a new category through a cognitive process of both abstraction and
synthesis, leads Berkeley to re-anchor the concept in tangible reality, linking it to particular
manifestations or embodiments. It reveals how Berkeley considers that words are nothing but a

67

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit, p.103, l.18.

68

Ibid. p.117.

69

Ibid. p.117.

70

Ibid.p.142.

71

BUSQUETS Joan, Logique et Langage: apports de la philosophie mdivale, Presses Universitaires de

Bordeaux, Pessac, 2006, p126: "Cependant l'abstraction chez Berkeley ne dbouche pas sur les ides
abstraites gnrales, seuls les mots sont gnraux".
Ibid. p128: "En rsum, pour Berkeley, les noms abstraits ne sont que des outils pistmologiques et la
gnralit, nest quune activit de lintelligence".
72

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distorting mirror of the world and how he aims at trying to turn lexicon into something that would
perfectly mirror reality as it is experienced.

It is because Berkley turns the notion of common sense into the first principle of his immaterialist
philosophy, as it is the yardstick by which epistemological judgements are evaluated, but also the
basis of Berkeley's conception of language, that it may be possible to define Berkeley's empiricism
as displaying a common sense epistemology.
Common sense is then what Berkeley uses as his master trump to invalidate the materialist theory,
arguing that "matter" is a non-existent concept.

2.2 Conceptual organisation, and the frameworks of iconicity : the notion

of matter and its designation.
The main purpose of the Three Dialogues is to confront two opposite theories, the materialist theory
defended by Hylas and the immaterialist one, defended by Philonous, in order to eventually prove
the superiority of immaterialism. The notion of "matter" is denied any kind of ontological status by
Philonous, Berkeley's spokesman in the Three Dialogues.
The dialogues thereby question the relations between reality and representation, that is to say the
concept of iconicity in language, as Philonous bases his refutation on the implicit postulate that
words, though resulting of arbitrary conventions, should mirror reality, that is to say one's
perceptive experience of the world. And one major point which rises difficulties is the reference to
matter, its designation and representation, as it is a concept whose definition is always challenged.
This notion undergoes many conceptual changes, as Hylas keeps on trying to define it and
Philonous keeps on deconstructing every one of those attempts.

2.2.1 A great variety of terms to designate matter: Berkeleys strategy to present a

concept with no real denotation nor extralinguistic referent.
In the Three Dialogues, "matter" is referred to through many different terms. It could be seen as
Berkeley's strategy to prove that this concept does not have any ontological status, and that is why it
cannot be precisely defined. In other words, Berkeley wants to show that the word "matter"
understood as the imperceptible substance of all things is nothing but a philosophical construction,

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a process of abstraction which results in the coinage of a word with no real denotation nor
extralinguistic referent.
There are a hundred occurrences of the word "matter" in the Three Dialogues, as in the First
Dialogue, when Hylas argues that an object's reality can be deduced from its qualities. He
defines reality as a basis which is deduced from the qualities' modes, such as, figure,
movements etc. that are apparent. According to Hylas, to postulate a substantial reality is a
necessary deduction:
"HYLAS. I tell you, extension is only a mode, and matter is something that supports modes."73
"Matter" is a noun phrase whose head is the common noun "matter" and its function is to be
subject of the verb "is". It is a noun-count noun, as it is not possible to have a representation of
its boundaries nor to divide it in several parts. The notion of uncountability is also included in
the semantism of the word, as it denotes the idea of a material abstracted from the shape of an
object.

This concept is also referred to through the term "material substance", as it is evidenced, at the
very beginning of the First Dialogue, when Hylas and Philonous's opposite views are presented
for the first time:
"PHILONOUS. That there is no such thing as what philosophers call material substance, I am
seriously persuaded ()
HYLAS. What! can any thing be more fantastical, more repugnant to common sense, or a more
manifest piece of scepticism, than to believe there is no such thing as matter?"74
"Material substance" is a noun phrase whose head is the common noun substance modified by
the classifying adjective "material". It is a non-count noun as it refers to the concept of matter,
which therefore has no distinct shape. "Matter" is a noun phrase, whose head is the common
noun "matter" and in this example, the two terms are used as synonyms. Therefore, it is possible
to say that "matter" and "material substance" are supposed to denote the same reality.
Twenty one occurrences of this term can be found in the dialogues, as well as seventy seven
other occurrences of noun phrases whose heads are the common noun "substance", such as in
the occurrence, "an unperceiving corporeal substance"75.

73

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit,p87, ll.17-18.

74

Ibid. p.60, ll. 18-24.

75

Ibid. p.65, ll. 16.

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Matter is also referred to through the common noun "being", as in the occurrence, "a senseless
being"76, a noun phrase whose head is the common noun "being", preceded by the classifying
adjective "senseless" and the indefinite article "a", and where the function of the noun phrase is
to be the object complement of "material substance", drawing an equivalence of definition
between the two occurrences.

There are also fifteen occurrences of the word "substratum", as in the Third Dialogue, when
Hylas is asking to Philonous what the mode of existence of things is, if they only exist in one's
mind, that is to say how object with qualities such as extension and movement can exist in what
is unextended.
"Explain me this if you can: and I shall then be able to answer all those queries you formerly put
into me about my substratum."77
"My substratum" is a noun phrase, whose head is the common noun "substratum" preceded by
the possessive determiner "my" which underlines the attribution of the materialist theory to
Hylas. The function of the noun phrase is to be complement of the preposition "about". The term
"substratum" stresses the idea that matter is conceived by Hylas as a support of qualities, and as
such he uses it as a synonym for the word "matter", even if "matter" puts the emphasis on the
materiality, that is to say the nature of it, whereas the term "substratum" puts the emphasis on
the function it is supposed to have.

There are four occurrences of the term "material substratum", which encompasses both what is
presented as the nature of matter and its function. It is notably evidenced, in the First Dialogue
when Hylas argues that all the properties of sensible things have to have a support because of
the way they manifest themselves:
"() I find it necessary to suppose a material substratum, without which they cannot be
conceived to exist"78 .

Matter is also compared because of its alleged functions, to a "cause"79 but also through other
terms, by the creation of metaphorical analogies, it is described as an "instrument" or an
76

Ibid. p.63, ll. 38.

77

Ibid. p.131, ll. 22-24.

78

Ibid. p. 83, ll. 31-33.

79

Ibid. p102, l.32.

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"occasion" by Hylas in the Second Dialogue80 . Those descriptions mark Hylas's attempt to
explicit what he means by the notion of matter.

Eventually, Matter is referred to, this time by Philonous, using negative or indefinite pronouns
such as "nothing" and "somewhat", which reflect his conception of matter:
"() or the impossibility of matter taken in an unknown sense, that is no sense at all. My
business was only to shew, you meant nothing ()81 .
In this occurrence matter is reduced to nothing, that is to say to its non existence.
Philonous, also sums up, Hylas's several attempts to define matter:
"Remember, the matter you counted for is an unknown somewhat ()"82
In this occurrence the indefinite pronoun "somewhat" undergoes a recategorisation and is turned
into a common noun. It stresses the multiplicity of possible referents to which "somewhat"
could refer and thereby presents the concept as potentially ungraspable.

This plurality of occurrences to designate matter blurs the identification of the concept, which
becomes either fragmented between its several functions and its nature, or opaque as it is defined
through another abstract concept, which does not have any stable representation either. The concept
of "substance", is according to Aristotle a question that was "raised of old and is raised now and
always, and is always the subject of doubt"83. The terms "substratum" or "material substratum", can
be seen as nothing but as drawing on the Aristotelian tradition, which uses the term "substratum" in
order to define what substance is. According to Aristotle, substance could be defined as "the
ultimate substratum which is no longer predicated of anything else"84 .
Therefore, there is a form of circularity in the definitions of matter, as it is presented in the Three
Dialogues, because if matter is a material substance and if this substance is a material substratum,
then, this material substratum could be understood as a material basis, a basic material component,
that is to say as matter. What is reflected here by Berkley, is an endless process of abstraction that
cannot find any ground in reality, that is to say in perceptive experience, and those words, "matter",

80

Ibid. p102 l. 33 p104, l.25.

81

Ibid. p.110, ll.25-26.

82

Ibid. p.141, ll. 14-18.

83

ARISTOTLE, The Metaphysics, Book Z (1028b1), Trans. W.D. Ross, Ed. Roger Bishop Jones, 2012, p.96.

84

ARISTOTLE, The Metaphysics, Book (1017b23), op.cit.p70.

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"substance" and "substratum" are nothing but philosophical constructions that are conceptual
chimeras.

2.2.2 The negative ontology of matter : markers of negation associated, in

occurrences referring to it.
According to our previous point, matter is therefore presented as a "non-concept". As such, some
occurrences referring to it have a negative polarity, which is given through the association of several
markers of negation in a same sentence, underlying the negative ontology of the concept.
It is notably salient when Philonous tries to convince Hylas of the absurdity of the materialist
theory, and of the impossibility to define matter, only because it does not exist.

- One example of this can be found in the First Dialogue:

"It seems then you have no idea at all neither relative nor positive of matter; you know neither
what it is in itself nor what relation it bears to accidents."85 It will be possible to study the global
structure of the two main clauses, as the markers of negation "neithernor", are coordinating
conjunctions.
The first main clause is an extraposed structure, "It seems then you haveof matter", which is
organised around the conjugated verbal phrase "seems" whose head is the lexical verb "seems". It
contains the subordinate nominal clause "you have no idea at all neither relative nor positive of
matter", introduced by the subordinating conjunction zero and organised around the verbal phrase
"have" whose head is the lexical verb "have". This clause's function is to be the real subject of the
verb "seems".
In this main clause there are two markers of negation: the determiner "no" and the coordinating
conjunctions "neithernor". The marker "no", underlined by the emphatic adverbial locution "at
all", has scope over the common noun "idea" that it determines negatively, so that the noun-phrase
"no idea" denotes the absence of any ontological status concerning the idea of matter, "of matter"
being complement of the noun "idea". The conjunctions "Neithernor" have scope over what could
be reformulated as "you have a relative idea" and "you have a positive idea ", and they mark a
second process, which denies the assessment of such utterances. Therefore, what is emphasised here
by Philonous, is Hylas's ignorance when it comes to the idea of matter, although Hylas is the one

85

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit,p85, ll.20-22.

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who supports the materialist theory. Matter is thereby, presented here as unknowable, for those who
pretend it exists, do not even know how to define it, so know not what it is.
This is reinforced by the second main clause, "you know neither what it is in itself nor what relation
it bears to accidents". It is organised around the verbal phrase whose head is the conjugated lexical
verb "know". It also contains two nominal relative subordinate clauses, coordinated by the
coordinating conjunction "nor":

- "What it is in itself nor what relation it bears to accidents".

- "What relation it bears to accidents".
The coordinating conjunctions "neithernor", have scope over the what is predicated of the
subject: <you/ know>. Thus, it is again, Hylas's ignorance which is stressed.
The effect created by those markers of negation putting the emphasis on Hylas's ignorance, is the
absurdity of the concept of matter itself, at it cannot be known even by those who postulate its
existence. It shows Berkeley's technique which does not consist to prove that matter does not exist,
only that it is impossible to prove that it does exist, as it is unknowable.

It is possible to find another example of this in the Second Dialogue, where Philonous has just
invalidated Hylas's definition of matter as "an occasion", that is to say as something that whenever
present to God, allows him to provoke ideas in men's minds:
"Do you not at length perceive that in all theses different acceptations of matter, you have been only
supposing you know not what, for no manner of reason, and to no kind of use?"86
This time, the markers of negation are the adverb "not", which negates verbs, and the determiner
"no", preceding nouns. The first marker "not" has scope over the lexical verb "know". Therefore
what is negated is the whole predicative relation: <you/know>. Here again, Philonous insists on
Hylas's ignorance.
But, furthermore, the two markers "no" which have scope over the nouns "reason" and "use", show
that he denies any relevance to both the cause and the purpose of maintaining such a theory as
materialism. Therefore, matter is not only an impossible and unknowable concept, but it is
grounded on a nonsensical process of reasoning. What is conveyed here, is the normative idea that
this concept cannot but also should not be postulated, as it is a reasoning aberration.

86

Ibid. p105, ll. 28-30.

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As a result, this association of different markers of negation in some sentences referring to matter
enhances Philonous's logic of deconstruction. It reveals Berkeley's method to invalidate the
materialist theory through the technique of the reductio ad absurdum. In other words, Hylas's
character is the one who tries to define the concept of matter, and Philonous the one who opposes
logical contradictions, so that the thinking process is that the existence of matter is presupposed, but
invalidated by the contradictions inherent to its definition.

2.2.3 The use of indefinite determination : renewed attempts to define a concept

which stays in itself indefinite and undefined.
As Hylas's attempts to define matter are often renewed, it may explain another phenomenon which
is the use of indefinite determination applied to occurrences referring to matter.
Hylas, following Aristotle theses, assumes that objects can be defined according to two categories,
that are substance and accidents87. This theory implies that there is an ultimate substratum that is
not predicated of anything else but which also gives its nature to the form or shape of things88. In
this perspective, according to Hylas, matter is nothing but this substratum or material substance
which is the support of several qualities, the combination of the two creating the object itself.

Such a conception can be found at the beginning of the First Dialogue, when Hylas and
Philonous argue about the reality of sensible things. Materialists assume that sensible things
cause a sensation within our mind, so that this sensation becomes sensible for us through this
process. Whereas Philonous pretends that things are sensible as they are perceived, and the
whole passage plays on the ambiguity between things and sensations.
" PHILONOUS How can then a great heat exist in it [an external object], since you own it
cannot in a material substance?89
Indefinite determination is here due to textual factors as it indicates that there is something new.
What is new is that the notion of material substance, previously defined by Hylas, is put into

ARISTOTLE, The Metaphysics, Book (1007a20), op.cit. p.50: "for this is the distinction between
substance and accident-'white' is accidental to man, because though he's white, whiteness is not his
essence ()".
87

88

ARISTOTLE, The Metaphysics, Book (1017b23), op.cit. p70.

89

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit. p.64, l.9-10.

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question. Then, what was referred to, on the previous page, as "your material substance"90, using
a definite determination inherent to possessive determiner "your", is now referred to, as a
concept that may be redefined.

Answering to Philonous's objection, which is, that if a great heat causes pain, therefore it must
exist within the mind, and cannot exist in a material substance defined as deprived of any
sensibility, Hylas gives another definition of matter in order to oppose it to the mind :
"() and pain cannot exist but in a perceiving being; it follows that no intense heat can really
exist in an unperceiving corporeal substance. But this is no reason ()"91
What is new in this passage is the description of matter as unperceiving and corporeal. It is the
first time that this denomination is given to the concept of matter. It also mirrors the
indefiniteness of the occurrence "a perceving being" which refers to the mind, and to which "an
unperceiving corporeal substance" is opposed. It is therefore, stylistically motivated and it
marks an effort, made by Hylas, to give a precise definition of matter, using a new
denomination.
On the contrary, at the end of the First Dialogue, Hylas's theory is unsettled by Philonous's
arguments, so that the concept of matter becomes more indefinite:
"HYLAS.() I would say, they have a real existence without the mind, in some unthinking
substance."92
"Some", in this context, is not reduced and what prevails is the semantic criteria, not the idea of
an unspecified number or amount of something93. "Some" denotes the conceptual indefiniteness
of the term "substance" and therefore mirrors Hylas's epistemological uncertainties.

Furthermore, matter's indefiniteness is emphasised at the end of the Third Dialogue, when
Hylas's materialist arguments are summed up by Philonous:
"Remember, the matter you counted for is an unknown somewhat ()."94

90

Ibid. p.63, l.38.

91

Ibid. p.65, ll. 15-17.

92

Ibid. p.81, ll.28-29.

93

LAPAIRE Jean-Rmi, ROTGE Wilfrid, Linguistique et grammaire de l'anglais, Presses Universitaires du

Mirail, 2002, p.155.
94

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit. p.141, ll. 14-18.

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This occurrence's indefinite determination could be explained by the semantism of the pronoun
somewhat, which is an indefinite pronoun, as well as by the fact that it is the first time that
matter is referred to in such a way in the dialogues. This indefiniteness is also underlined by the
adjective "unknown". In this context "unknown" does not have a simple evaluative reading but
also an epistemic one, as it would be possible to reformulate the occurrence as: the matter you
counted for is somewhat; and the denotation of this somewhat is not known. The adjective
"unknown" specifies the indefiniteness denoted by the pronoun "somewhat", conveying the idea
that this "somewhat" is not only indefinite, but also undefined.

Eventually, if indefinite determination applied to occurrences referring to the concept of matter,

shows that there is a constant redefinition of the concept throughout the dialogues, it finally
leads to the last definition, which is that matter is "nothing":
"() or the impossibility of matter taken in an unknown sense, that is no sense at all. My
business was only to shew, you meant nothing ()95 .
"Nothing" being a negative indefinite pronoun, which denotes a pure ontological negation, and
where indefiniteness is built in the semantic of the phrase, it may be seen as encompassing both
ideas that the concept of matter is indefinite and undefinable, as it is non existent.

2.3 Berkeleys empiricism : a negating and inductive rhetorical process

that pictures immaterialism through its mirror image, by rejecting matter.
In his Three Dialogues , Berkeley does not positively present or define his immaterialist theory. The
process of the dialogues is to strip materialism from all credibility, so that immaterialism becomes a
default option. Therefore, immaterialism's principles are to be found within Philonous's
argumentative pieces, refuting materialism, and Berkeley's empiricism has to be read and defined
between the lines.

2.3.1 Only six occurrences of immaterialism , and only in the last pages of the
third dialogue : a concept which hardly dares speak its name.

95

Ibid. p.110, ll.25-26.

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What can be noticed is that the term "immaterialism" only appears in the last pages of the third
dialogue, whereas it has been implicitly referred to in the three dialogues. There are six occurrences
of the word, from page 136 to page 140.96
Those utterances appear as encompassing the results of all the previous exchanges that Hylas and
Philonous had, and therefore, the final acknowledgement, by both characters, of a theory which
dared no speak its name until this final conciliation:

- "HYLAS. What doubts, what hypotheses, what labyrinths of amusement, what fields of false
learning, may be avoided by that single notion of immaterialism?"97
This occurrence shows how Hylas acknowledges the potential validity of the immaterialist theory,
as he describes it as the potential means to prevent misleading ideas or interpretations.

- "PHILONOUS. () If there are difficulties attending immaterialism, there are at the same time
direct and evident proofs of it."98
In this utterance, Philonous acknowledges the possible theoretical issues that may be inherent in the
notion of materialism, so that he gives some credit to Hylas's previous questioning.

What those occurrences of "immaterialism" also reveal is the way Hylas's objections are only
partially dealt with. In the Second Dialogue, what Hylas mainly expresses, is an uneasiness
concerning the immaterialist theory, as it is perceived as incomplete. Philonous's strategy of
reductio ad absurdum, only leaves an open challenge99 : "() I challenge you to show me that thing
in Nature which needs matter to explain or account for it"100 .
What stresses this assumption, is the first mention of immaterialism:
"PHILONOUS. () You tell me indeed of a repugnancy between the Mosaic history and
immaterialism: but you know not where it lies. () Can you expect I should solve a difficulty
without knowing what it is?"101
96

Ibid. p.136, ll. 23-25; p.138, ll. 4-6; p.139, ll. 32-34; p.140, ll. 15-16; p.140, ll. 29-31 and 37-39.

97

Ibid. p.139, ll. 32-34.

98

Ibid. p.140, ll. 15-16.

Cf. STONEHAM, Tom, Berkeley's World: An Examination of the Three Dialogues, Oxford University Press,
2002, p110.
99

100
101

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit. p.108, ll. 35-36.
Ibid. p.136, ll. 23-25.

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This noun phrase denotes the existence of a last objection made by Hylas of Philonous's theory, to
which Philonous answers, using the argument that Hylas's uneasiness with the immaterialist theory
has to be precisely defined in order to be answered. So that there is a constant mention of this idea
that there is something missing or incomplete, inherent to immaterialism, but it is an idea that is
never dwelt upon.

Therefore, what is proved at the end of the dialogues, when immaterialism is eventually mentioned,
is that it is a less unreasonable theory than materialism that has been supposedly proved to be an
absurdity. Therefore by assessing that "difficulties attending immaterialism" are "evident proofs of
it", Philonous sweeps away those difficulties.
If it appears that in order to be named, immaterialism has to be more than a simple hypothesis,
paradoxically, the whole concept is never fully accounted for, so that its definition partly remains in
the dark or unveiled. If explicitly naming the concept seems to be paralleled with the
acknowledgement of a positive ontological status, this acknowledgment appears as only partial and
mostly grounded on the negation of the opposite theory.

2.3.2 Negative affixes linked to the designation of matter : language as an unreliable

tool to apprehend reality and the rejection of abstract general ideas.
Another feature of the inductive and negating rhetorical process which marks Berkeley's empiricism
is the negative affixes in occurrences which refer to the notion of matter.
Indeed, in the dialogues, matter is defined negatively several times, through adjectives made up
with negative affixes:

- "PHILONOUS. () except you take it for granted, that unknown substratum, or whatever else
you call it, is proportional to those sensible qualities ()"102
This adjectival phrase is made up with the adjective "known" and the negative prefix "un-".
"Un-" in an affix which favours adjectives and which is rather productive.103 "Unknown"
modifies the common noun "substratum", which is therefore negatively described.

102

Ibid. p.124, ll. 18-19.

103

LIEBER Rochelle, Morphology and Lexical Semantics, Cambridge University Press, 2004, p110.

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- "PHILONOUS. And doth not matter, in the common current acceptation of the word, signify an
extended, solid, moveable, unthinking, inactive substance?"104
"Unthinking" is an adjectival phrase whose head is the classifying adjective "unthinking".
This adjectival phrase is made with the verbal classifying adjective "thinking" and the negative
prefix "un-". "Unthinking" modifies the common noun "substance", which is therefore negatively
described.
"Inactive" is an adjectival phrase, whose head is the classifying adjective "inactive". It is made
with the classifying adjective "active" and the prefix "in-" which also favours adjectives.
"Inactive" also modifies the common noun "substance" and describes it negatively.

- "PHILONOUS. Is your material substance a senseless being, or being endowed with sense and
perception?"105
"Senseless" is an adjectival phrase whose head is the adjective "senseless", that in this context
means the lack of physical sensation. It is made up with the common noun "sense" which is
recategorised through the use of the suffix -less.
This adjectival phrase modifies and describes negatively the common noun "being".

Those adjectives made up with negative affixes are significative of Berkeley's conception of
language, and of his rejection of abstract general ideas, for they define matter as both unperceiving
(senseless, unthinking and inactive), and unperceived (unknown), that is to say as a concept that
does not have any attendant particular idea, understood as sensible. If Berkeley accepts "the
multiple reference of general terms as a true and proper function of language"106 , he denies the
equivalence according to which general terms refer to abstract general ideas. For Berkeley general
terms do not denote abstract general ideas but they are a synthesis of all particular ideas from which
they are generalised.107 And ideas have to be understood as particular objects of the world

104

Ibid. p.101, ll. 26-28.

105

Ibid. p.63, ll. 38-39.

106

WALMSLEY Peter, The Rhetoric of Berkeley's Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p.11.

FIELDS Keota, Berkeley's Immaterialism: An Interpretation and Critique - A dissertation submitted to the
Graduate Faculty of Philosophy in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy, The City of University of New York, 2007, UMI, 2008, p.150.
107

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themselves, and not as images. They are those very sensible items, what Berkeley calls "ideas of
sense [which] are not representations"108.
Therefore, the negative definition of matter as neither perceiving nor being perceived through the
use of negative affixes, reflects Berkeley's rejection of a process of deductive and theoretical
abstraction, opposed to a process of generalisation based on perception.
It also shows what use Berkeley makes of language, as Berkeley in giving such a negative
definition in pulling aside the word "matter" in order to reveal the empty space it covers109. It
echoes Berkeley's assumption according to which language is a tool that may mislead one's
apprehension of reality, as well as it reflects his decision that: "since words are so apt to impose on
the understanding, whatever ideas I consider, I shall endeavour to take them bare and naked into my
view; keeping out of my thoughts, so far as I am able, those names which long and constant use
hath so strictly united with them."110
In other words it reflects Berkeley's theory according to which "there is a disjunction between
language and accurate thought"111.

2.3.3 Closed interrogative sentences regarding the existence of matter : Berkeleys

epistemological monism.
Finally, it will be possible to focus on another pattern that shapes Berkley's implicit presentation of
immaterialism, which is the presence of closed interrogative sentences regarding the existence of
matter. There are several occurrences of such sentences in the First Dialogue, when Philonous and
Hylas are arguing about the definition of matter as defined, notably by Aristotle in The
Metaphysics, as a substance or a substratum that supports accidents. Philonous's strategy in this part
of the text, is to lead each assumption made by Hylas to a contradictory conclusion so that he will
have to acknowledge that he does not know how to define matter as a substance or substratum.
In order to lead him so, Philonous, uses several closed interrogative sentences, which are often
rhetorical questions, so that he controls and restrains Hylas's possible answers:

ROBERT John Russel, A Metaphysics for the Mob: The Philosophy of George Berkeley, Oxford University
Press, 2007, p51.
108

109

WALMSLEY Peter, The Rhetoric of Berkeley's Philosophy, op.cit. p.11.

110

BERKELEY George, Principles of Human Knowledge, op.cit. XXI, p.9.

111

WALMSLEY Peter, The Rhetoric of Berkeley's Philosophy,op.cit., p.12.

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- "PHILONOUS Answer me, Hylas. Can a thing be spread without extension? or is not the
idea of extension necessarily included in spreading?
HYLAS. It is."112
"Can a thing be spread without extension?" is an independent clause, organised around the complex
verbal phrase in the passive, "can be spread" whose head is the lexical verb "spread". The
interrogative from has scope over the modal auxiliary "can", which is a modal that "intervenes
within a predicative relation, in order to assess or deny a given property either to a subject or an
object or to create an intersubjective relation related to the subject of the predicative relation".113
In this interrogative occurrence, what is questioned is the relation between a thing that is spread and
the property of extension, the possibility for them not to be linked. Therefore, there are either two
alternatives to this question, whose polarity is restrained by the following occurrence: "is not the
idea of extension necessarily included in spreading?" It is a main clause, coordinated to the first one
by the coordinating conjunction "or". It is organised around the verbal phrase " is notincluded" in
the negative, passive and interrogative form, whose head is the lexical verb "include". This main
clause contains a gerundive clause "spreading" whose head is the non conjugated verb, in the
gerundive form, "spreading". This main clause restrains the polarity of the former clause, as it gives
an argument, the fact that extension is included in spreading, and that this argument then strongly
favours one answer over the other.

This play on polarity in interrogative clauses, is even further reinforced in the following
occurrences of closed interrogative clauses, which are rhetorical questions:

- "PHILONOUS. Well then, let us examine the relation implied in the term substance. Is it not
that it stands under accidents?
HYLAS. The very same.
()
PHILONOUS. Is not therefore this supposition liable to the same absurdity with the
former?
HYLAS. You still take things in a strict literal sense. That is not fair, Philonous."114

112

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit. p.84, ll. 23-25.

113

LAPAIRE Jean-Rmi, ROTGE Wilfrid, Linguistique et grammaire de l'anglais, Presses Universitaires du

Mirail, 2002, p.49: "Can intervient l'intrieur de la relation prdicative, pour poser une proprit du sujet ou
de l'objet, ou pour tablir une relation intersubjective concernant le sujet de cette relation prdicative."
BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit. p.84, ll. 39-40 and p.85, ll.
1-8.
114

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This clause is positively oriented, for it could be reformulated as, "the relation implied in the term
substance is that it stands under accident, isn't it?" The possibility to rephrase the clause, using a
negative question tag, shows that the polarity is positive115 . Therefore, this interrogative sentence
may be seen as a rhetorical question, for it contains its answer.
The same logic applies to the occurrence, "Is not therefore this supposition liable to the same
absurdity with the former", which is a independent clause organised around the verbal phrase "is
not". It can also be reformulated as "Therefore, this supposition is liable to the same absurdity with
the former, isn't it?". This clause, is then also positively oriented and may be seen as a rhetorical
question.
Those closed interrogative sentences, whose polarity is positively oriented, aim at pushing Hylas to
the wall, so that he cannot do anything but acknowledge that if matter is a substratum, it is by
definition extended, and therefore also needs a substratum, which leads to an absurd reasoning.
Philonous's argument in this excerpt targets two possible visions of matter, as an ultimate
substratum and the support of qualities. It targets the idea that matter would be a substratum of
qualities because it bears some analogical resemblance to the qualities it is supporting, but also the
opposite idea that as a support of qualities, it is "somewhat in its own nature, entirely distinct from
extension"116, that is to say entirely distinct from those modes or qualities.
It thus reveals Berkeley's rejection of a certain form of abstraction, which deprives words from their
literal sense in order to create an abstract analogical equivalence, that per se, cannot be accounted
for, but only metaphorically, through its sensible model. It is in this perspective that Berkeley's
epistemology is presented here as monist, for Berkeley's theory is that nothing but sensible items,
things that can be perceived, can be known and interpreted.

Berkeley's linguistic way of dealing with the two main premisses of his immaterialist philosophy,
the validity of common sense as his first principle and the impossibility to prove the existence of
matter, shows how in the Three Dialogues Berkeley's style is linked to his ontology, giving an
implicit definition of immaterialism grounded on a positivist ontology of lexicon according to
which valid concepts are those whose denominations are attended by sensible ideas, that is to say,
perceivable items.

115

DOWNING Angela Downing, LOCKE Philip, A University Course in English Grammar, Routledge , 2002,
p190.
116

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit. p.84, ll.15-16.

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III Berkeleys style: between sense and sensibility, in order to frame a

certain definition of a common sense philosophy.
The fact that Berkeley's Three Dialogues uses literary style, mixes and intertwines different stylistic
moments, while presenting the main features of immaterialism both implicitly and explicitly, and
playing on the notion of polarity may eventually allow us to venture a definition of Berkeley's
style as a style caught between sense and sensibility, that frames his philosophy.
We will also venture to call Berkeley's philosophy a "common sense philosophy" even though there
is a philosophical debate about whether or not Berkley's immaterialism could be considered as a
certain species of the philosophy called common sense realism. Nevertheless, if we understand this
notion as consisting in the claim that, "bodies really have the properties they appear to us to have,
and that bodies exist whether or not they are being perceived by a finite perceiver"117, Berkeley's
philosophy may be called a common sense philosophy, as he assumes that reality is what is
perceived by our senses, and that bodies ultimately exist in God's infinite mind, so that their
existence do not depend on any finite being's perception. Yet, he only partially embraces common
sense realism, as he rejects the idea supported by this theory, that "a physical object has an absolute
existence"118 . Therefore, Berkeley's philosophy may be understood as a particular interpretation of
the common sense philosophy doctrine, or as a hybrid caught between idealism and common sense
realism, which might be mirrored by what can be defined as his hybridity of style.

3.1 A philosophical style undercover? The characters semiological and

ontological status.
It may be possible to wonder if the diversity of styles in the Three Dialogues is only a pretext,
allowing Berkeley to present his philosophy through two characters' dispute and performance, so
117

McCRACKEN Charles J., Godless immaterialism - On Atherton's Berkeley, in MUEHLMANN Robert G.

(ed.) Berkeley's Metaphysics: Structural, Interpretive, and Critical Essays, The Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1995, p 249.
118

SOTIROS PAPPAS George, Berkeley's Thought, Cornell University Press, 2000, p.186.

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that under the mask of Philonous, Berkeley would simply throw a new light upon his theory while
answering to previous objections and potential opponents. In that case, Berkeley's characters could
be understood as being only sensible decoys covering his common sense philosophy.
This question will be studied through a focus on the characters' semiological and ontological status.

3.1.1 Berkeleys characters as linguistic signs119 and the motivation behind the choice
of names.
First, it may be possible to analyse the characters of Hylas and Philonous as linguistic signs,
following Philippe Hamon's idea that a character can be considered as a sign, that it is possible to
choose a way to apprehend it that shapes it while incorporating it into a definite message, which is
also composed of linguistic signs.120
To begin with, according to Hamon, as a unit of a system, a character, can be defined as a "double
articulated morpheme, which manifests itself by a discontinuous signifier that refers to a
discontinuous signified and that is part of a new paradigm created by the message"121.
Hylas and Philonous may be defined as "triggering-characters" who attest the presence of either the
author, the reader or their representatives, in the text. 122
Philonous may be perceived as being Berkeley's spokesman, as he is the one who defends the
immaterialism thesis and who conveys the arguments already developed in Berkeley's other works.
Hylas, represents a certain readership, the one made of materialist philosophers, scholars, but also
of all those who have chosen the materialist theory as a default option, following the Aristotelian
and Cartesian dualist traditions.
But both Hylas and Philonous may at the same time be defined as "anaphora-characters", that is to
say, as characters "who create in speech a network of links and echoes between segments of

Cf. HAMON Philippe, Pour un statut smiologique du personnage, in Littrature, Revue trimestrielle,
Volume 6, N2, Mai 1972, pp.86-110, Larousse ed.
119

Ibid. p.87: "Mais considrer a priori le personnage comme un signe, c'est--dire choisir un point de vue
qui construit cet objet en l'intgrant au message dfini lui-mme comme compos de signes linguistiques
()"
120

121

Ibid. p 96.: "dfinir comme une sorte de morphme doublement articul, manifest par un signifiant
discontinu, renvoyant un signifi discontinu, et faisant partie d'un paradigme original construit par le
message ()"
Ibid. p. : "personnages-embrayeurs. Ils sont les marques de la prsence en texte de l'auteur, du lecteur,
ou de leurs dlgus ()"
122

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utterances that are disjoint and of various length (a phrase, a word, or a paragraph), and are as such,
mnemonic landmarks for the reader. They can be considered as the way the written work is quoting
itself and creates a tautology"123.

Nevertheless, the signification of a character, still according to Hamon who opposes signification to
meaning, is construed by its differentiation from the other characters, understood as equivalent
signs belonging to the same semiological system.124Therefore, Hylas and Philonous are to be
defined in relation to one another, just as the theories each defends have to be defined by
comparison and opposition to other theories and philosophical traditions. The meaning of the
characters is construed by the chain of relations they create with each other, and its validity depends
on the very textual architecture they contribute to build.

Furthermore, Hamon remarks that if a linguistic sign's characteristic is to be arbitrary the degree of
this arbitrariness may vary and that it is the same for characters if we study the relation between
their names and their name's signified, that is to say, all the informations to which those name refer.
It may be argue that this relation is sometimes "motivated"125, which is actually the case for Hylas
and Philonous. They both have names based on Ancient Greek etymology, so that they both have a
possible denotation in this language. "Hylas", is derived from the noun (hyle) which means
"matter" and "Philonous" is made up with the prefix "phil-" derived from the word (philia)
meaning "the love for" and the noun (nos) which means "knowledge". Therefore, Hylas is
named after his beliefs and Philonous after the role and position Berkeley gives him in the
dialogues, as the figure of a man who is aiming at nothing but the truth when invalidating
materialism. Those names may be defined as conceptual designations, so that Berkeley's motivation
may be to give a potentially identifiable denotation to his character's names, creating a coreferentiality between a possible definition of the characters and their names.
123 Ibid.

p. 96: "Ces personnages tissent dans l'nonc un rseau d'appels et de rappels des segments
d'noncs disjoints et de longueur variable ()
124

Ibid. p.99 : "C'est donc diffrentiellement, vis--vis des autres personnages de l'nonc que se dfinira
avant tout un personnage."
Ibid. p.107 : "Le signe linguistique se dfinit par son arbitraire; mais le degr d'arbitraire d'un signe peut
tre variable, dans la langue mme, et dans d'autres systmes smiologiques. On peut retrouver cette
notion si l'on examine la relation qui existe entre le nom du personnage (son signifiant : noms propres,
communs, et substituts divers qui lui servent de support discontinu) et la somme d'information laquelle il
renvoie (son signifi). Cette relation est trs frquemment motive ."
125

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As a result, one might argue that what could appear as flat characters, with no complex and detailed
features nor universe, are only used as a pretext, as signs that only indicate the unfolding of
Berkeley's dialectical reasoning.
This hypothesis seems to induce that while Hylas is the embodiment of Berkeley's readership,
Philonous is nothing but Berkeley's double.
Yet, even if both Philonous and Berkley defend the immaterialist theory, Philonous in the dialogues,
does not have the same purpose as Berkeley does when writing those. Philonous wants to prove to
Hylas, that matter is an absurdity and wants to invalidate materialism, while Berkeley's final aim is
rather to convince his readership to acknowledge the immaterialist theory126.
It is not exactly the same process because Philonous's acknowledged aim at the beginning of the
First Dialogue is only to prove that materialism is more absurd than immaterialism, not to turn
Hylas into an immaterialist philosopher. And indeed, at the end of the Third Dialogue Hylas is
convinced that materialism cannot be a valid theory whereas he still has some scruples about
immaterialism:

"To say there is no matter in the world, is still shocking to me. Whereas to say, there is no matter, if
by that term be meant an unthinking substance existing without the mind: but if by matter is meant
some sensible thing, whose existence consists in being perceived, then there is matter: this
distinction gives it quite another turn ()"127
Hylas does not entirely side with Philonous, he stays partly influenced by his ancient materialist
beliefs and tries to find a kind of compromise between immaterialist notions and materialist
language. Berkeley's aim is not to lead his readership to this kind of intermediate state of mind, but
to present Philonous's guidance and Hylas's partial resistance as an invitation to go a step further
than Hylas by fully embracing immaterialism, after the reading of the dialogues.

Berkeley's characters, are granted a certain independence of thought, and the dialogues present their
thinking process as belonging to their own fictional sphere. As readers we only progressively
discover Philonous's beliefs and arguments, on the occasion of his disputes with Hylas, as well as
we only progressively discover Hylas's conception of materialism. It is not the case with a

126

STONEHAM, Tom, Berkeley's World: An Examination of the Three Dialogues,op.cit., p.21.

127

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit.p.142, ll. 15-19.

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philosophical essay, where the main features of the philosopher's thesis are directly presented with
arguments that are meant to convince the reader that he should believe in this thesis.128
The dialogues could be seen as the progressive unveiling of Hylas and Philonous's frames of mind,
that is to say as the progressive construction of their ontological status as fictional characters.

3.1.2 Dialectics at work between Hylas and Philonous in questions and rhetorical
questions : illocutionary force of interrogative and indirect interrogative sentences.
If a certain ontological status can be attributed to Hylas and Philonous, it is possible to remark
that,this status is framed by the confrontation of the two characters' speech, as the dialogues are
construed around their dispute, so that the dialectics at work between the two characters exchanges
may be studied.

This dialectics seems to be particularly salient in some exchanges including

sentences which are direct or indirect interrogative clauses, and whose illocutionary force reveals
the characters' linguistic power game:

An example can be found in the Second Dialogue, when Hylas assesses that the concept of matter is
improbable, yet, not absolutely impossible. Hylas tries to elude Philonous's reasoning, by alleging
the argument that the word matter is polysemic, and Philonous's answer is made of a series of
rhetorical direct interrogative sentences:

- "PHIL. But is it not the only proper genuine received sense?() Or, indeed, how could there
be any proof at all one way or other, to a man who takes the liberty to unsettle and change
the common signification of words?"129
"But is it not the only proper genuine received sense? is an independent direct interrogative clause,
organised around the verbal phrase "is" whose head is the lexical verb "is". Its illocutionary force is
interrogative, as Philonous is asking Hylas whether or not the meaning Hylas has previously given
of the word matter is the most popular. Nevertheless, the illocutionary force is mainly assertive, as
the clause could be reformulated as, "But it is the only proper genuine received sense, isn't it?
Therefore, the polarity is negative and the question is rhetorical.

128

STONEHAM, Tom, Berkeley's World: An Examination of the Three Dialogues,op.cit., p.20.

129

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit. p.109, ll.30-35.

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The polarity of the sentence is restrained by the modal auxiliary "could" and reinforced by the
indefinite determination of the semantic subject of the verbal phrase "could be", this subject being
the common noun "proof". This noun is preceded by the indefinite determiner "any", and followed
by the intensifying adverbial locution "at all". Therefore, the possibility to convince a man who
changes definitions of word as he pleases that is to say Hylas is what is strongly questioned
in this occurrence. The value of the preterit of the modal "could" is a modal value, that emphasises
the desactualisation of the process which is the existence of a proof which would be perceived as
valid by Hylas. The polarity of the sentence is negative, as Philonous indirectly denies the existence
of such a proof, and the illocutionary force is then mainly assertive, as Philonous expresses what he
believes to be impossible, and so, it is again a rhetorical question.
Nevertheless there is also an interrogative illocutionary force, as this question is addressed to Hylas
and as Hylas indeed answers, by arguing that he thought that "philosophers might be allowed to
speak more accurately than the vulgar"130.

Another example of the characters' dialectical relation, can be found in occurrences of indirect
interrogative sentences, such as in the Third Dialogue, when Hylas uses Philonous's argument
according to which there is no ontological continuum possible between the unextended mind and
extended physical items, to question him about the possibility for the mind to be the only thing
which secures the reality of objects, which exist as they are perceived.

- "HYL. Explain to me now, O Philonous! how it is possible there should be room for all those
trees and houses to exist in your mind."131
If the sentence is a declarative sentence, where the subject precedes the verb, nevertheless, the
illocutionary force is both interrogative and directive. Indeed Hylas makes a requirement, as
evidenced by the imperative form of "explain" which is the head of the verbal phrase "exclaim"
around which the main clause "Explain to me now, O Philonous! how it is possible there should be
room for all those trees and houses to exist in your mind", is organised. But the illocutionary force
is also interrogative, for Hylas is questioning Philonous about the possible validity of his theory.
This is evidenced by the semantism of the adverb "how" which means "in what way" and by the
noun "possible" which is attribute of the object "it", but also of the semantic subject "there should
130

Ibid. p.109, ll. 36-37.

131

Ibid. p.131, ll. 15-16.

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be room for all those trees and houses to exist in your mind", which means that they are coreferential. This interrogative illocutionary force is underlined by the several direct interrogative
sentences that follow, from line 17 to 22, and come as a complement of the first question.

What those three occurrences show is that the dialectical confrontation between the characters,
plays on a double illocutionary force, used by Philonous as well as Hylas. This duality allows the
display of arguments while leaving the debate open to the addition of new objections or answers. It
reveals how each characters' speech is construed, integrating the speech of his antagonist, so that the
philosophical reflection displayed by Berkeley is progressing by raising objections and overcoming
its own contradictions. In this perspective, Hylas and Philonous may be apprehended as forming a
dialectical whole.

It is in their dialectical relationship, which confronts the "vulgar view and

philosophical views" that Berkeley seems to conceive the possibility of revealing what he considers
as being the truth132.

3.1.3 Force dynamics in the characters speeches.

What may also be studied is the force dynamics in the characters speeches. Force dynamics,
according to Leonard Talmy's definition, is "a generalisation over the traditional linguistic notion of
'causative': it analyses 'causing' into finer primitives and sets it naturally within a framework that
also includes 'letting', hindering', 'helping' and still further more notions not normally considered in
the same context."133 This force dynamics is revealed through several syntactic elements such as
conjunctions or prepositions, but also through modals. The force applied to the subject or the object
can be physical, psychological, socio-psychological or intrapsychological134.
When it comes to the force dynamics at work in Hylas and Philonous speeches, the force is usually
either applied by one character over the other, or the result of social and philosophical traditions, so
therefore, either psychological or socio-psychological. What is also noticeable is that the force
dynamics evolves through the dialogues:

RORTY Richard, SCHNEEWIND Jerome B., SKINNER Quentin, Philosophy in History: Essays in the
Historiography of Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 1984. p.318.
132

133

TALMY Leonard, Towards a Cognitive Semantics. - Volume 1, The MIT Press, 2001 p.409.

134

Ibid. p.412.

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At the beginning of the First Dialogue, Hylas and Philonous are evenly certain of the truth and
validity of their respective theory, and present the influence of the other as highly improbable. They
both present themselves as resistant to the force of the other's conviction. It is notably expressed
through the use of comparative and hypothetical structures associated to modals auxiliaries :

- "PHILONOUS. ()if I were made to see any thing absurd or sceptical in this, I should then
have the same reason to renounce this that I imagine I have now to reject the contrary
opinion."135
Philonous evokes the possibility of being convinced that he is in the wrong, only to desactualise
it,. This idea is conveyed through the hypothetical structure introduced by the conjunction "if",
the temporal opposition between the proximal deictic "now" and the distal deictic "then", and the
use of the modal "should"which has both an epistemic and radical value as it expresses the
probability that if immaterialism was proved absurd he would reject it but also a kind of internal
logical obligation of the subject to reject what has been proved absurd.
The philosophical demonstration's invalidating power exerts some pressure over Philonous's
assumptions, but if Philonous recognises its existence, he rejects it as only potential.

The equivalent recognition and rejection can be found around the same passage, in Hylas's speech:

- "HYLAS. "You may as soon persuade me, the part is greater than the whole, as that, in
order to avoid absurdity and scepticism, I should ever be obliged to give up my opinion on
this point"136.
This time the derealisation process is performed through a structure of comparison, with the
correlation "asas", but also with the use the modals "may" and "should". "May" has an
epistemic value as it expresses a logical probability, the fact that Hylas would be convinced by
Philonous, a probability notably desactualised by the comparative structure. "Should" has a
radical deontic value, as it expresses the obligation for Philonous to change his mind and reject
materialism. The preterit has a modal value, as it underlines the derealisation of the process, and
stresses the idea that this obligation is highly improbable. Therefore, the force dynamics is also
made of the acknowledgement of a possible influence, which is nonetheless derealised, as highly
improbable.

135

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit. p.60, ll. 18-21.

136

Ibid. p.60, ll. 29-31.

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Those two examples show how, at the beginning of the dialogues, the force dynamics in Hylas
and Philonous's speeches seems to be evenly balanced, as they both equally believe in their
respective theory.

- Yet, what can be noticed at the end of the First Dialogue, is that this force dynamics is already
changing, notably when Philonous uses the maieutic technique pretending that [his] aim is only
to "learn from [Hylas], the way to come at the knowledge of material beings"137 , in order to
neutralise Hylas's resistance to his questioning process. By this technique which draws on the
Platonic tradition, Philonous presents the force dynamics as inverted. He presents himself as
being the one who is ready to be taught and guided by Hylas, whereas his aim is only to lead
Hylas to face his ignorance. It shows how Philonous is now the one who controls the unfolding
of the dispute and its orientation.

- This idea is ultimately reinforced at the end of the Third Dialogue, when Hylas acknowledges his
powerlessness against Philonous's arguments using in the negative form, the modal auxiliary
"can" that has a radical dynamic value, as in "I cannot help thinking so"138 and "I cannot
contradict you"139. The first occurrence of "cannot" expresses the internal impossibility for
Hylas to think differently from what he has been persuaded by Philonous. It also suggests that it
is against his own will so that there is a form of resistance. The second occurrence of "cannot",
marks the impossibility for Hylas to object anything to Philonous, with the idea that he might
wish the reverse.
The force dynamics in the characters' speeches obeys to a pattern that evolves through the dialogues
so that what can be seen as a rather balanced equilibrium at the beginning of the First Dialogue, is
turned into the predominance of Philonous at the end of the Third Dialogue. It also emphasises the
creation by Berkeley of two characters who have a different ontological status. If Philonous always
represents the same reality, being the one who maintains the validity of immaterialism in the three
dialogues, on the contrary Hylas's profile evolves and so is his ontology. He has alternatively the
role of the antagonist and of the pupil, and at the end he appears as being more Philonous's tamed
alter ego.

137

Ibid.p.90 ll.34-35.

138

Ibid. p.136, l.38.

139

Ibid. p.137, l. 11.

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On this account, it is possible to consider that Berkley's characters can be interpreted both through
the angle of semiotic and ontology, for they are more than the embodiment of linguistic items
understood as conceptual denominations. They have an ontological status built on their dialectical
relationship and on the force dynamics of their speeches. And it is in this perspective that it would
be possible to consider that Berkeley's philosophical style is not so much undercover than it is
intertwined with literary features, whose role appears to predate in a way the Hegelian theory
according to which art and therefore literature is meant to unveil the truth.

3.2 Mimesis and metaphor in Berkeleys style.

Berkeley's language in the Three Dialogues, seems to reflect his aim to built reality out of ideas,
understood as sensible items, and the potential paradoxes that this process might involve. He
seemed to be opposing a conception of language as idealistically mimetic with a figurative use of
language, while his style is essentially figurative as Berkeley's purpose is indeed to remotivate
concepts attended to the language of experience.

3.2.1 A visual and mimetic language : esse est percipi.

Berkeley rejects, through his immaterialist theory, the traditional metaphysical hypothesis that there
are things which a finite mind cannot conceive, and that there is an entire part of reality which stays
unreachable for the human mind. As a result, according to Berkeley, no thing exists beyond its
immediate perceptible qualities or properties, contrary to what our faculty of abstraction, notably
through language, would lead us to believe. Therefore, if language is at fault, it is because it always
tends to signify beyond its sensible referent and to build from there analogies that are in fact
emptied of any stable and identifiable, that is to say, perceptible referent.
Language, for Berkeley, in its way of referring, has to be showing, literally pointing at the sensible
world.
It is linked to the idea developed by Berkeley, notably in the Alciphron , that there is a natural
language, which is a visual language defined primarily by its intentionality revealing that, if

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"language is the effect of reasoned, designed, deliberation and, therefore, the effect of a mind"140,
then it is in fact a divine language that is displayed in nature.
An example of this thesis can be found at the beginning of the Second Dialogue, when Hylas , in
trying to assess the reality of matter, is lead by Philonous's questions and objections to deny any real
existence to sensible things. Philonous's answer to this argument takes the form of a proof by
example. Philonous uses the experience one has when confronted to nature for his demonstration
and what is remarkable is that his argumentation is based on one sense only, which is vision. It is
the only medium that, in this passage, is presented as testifying of the reality of things. According to
Philonous, "all the visible beauty of the creation"141 , what turns any form of scepticism about the
reality of the world as we perceive it, into an absurdity. Hence all the occurrences, in this
passage,142belonging to the lexical field of vision.

It begins with an exhortation, "Look!", which is a verbal phrase, whose head is the lexical verb look
at the imperative form. Its illocutionary force is directive as Philonous commands Hylas to look at
the nature that surrounds them, as they are in a garden, but this can also be taken in a figurative
sense, as a exhortation to pay attention and to look forward to the speech which is about to unfold.
There are other verbal phrases belonging to the lexical field vision: "to behold" (l.10), "illustrate" (l.
18), "appear" (l.27); but also noun phrases such as "the prospect" (l. 7), and "a nearer view" (l. 30).
What is shown in this passage is that nature is infused by a divine intentionality, that makes things
visible, the necessity for a divine mind to perceive and therefore guarantee the stable existence of
sensible items being another corner stone of Berkeley's immaterialism, according to which to exist
is to perceive or to be perceived.
Another example of this primarily visual language, can be found at the very end of the Third
Dialogue, with the allegory of the fountain143 . Philonous and Hylas who are still in a garden, are
standing in front of a fountain, and Philonous takes this visible item to gives a summary of his
thinking process in the three dialogues. And again Philonous begins with a visual verb "see", used
here only in its literal meaning. The fountain's exemplification of an abstract thinking process, can
LEWIS PRINTZ Amanda, The Scope and Significance of George Berkeley's Language Model - A
dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Southern California, in partial fulfilment of the
requirement for the degree Doctor of Philosophy, UMI, 2007, p.120.
140

141

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit. p.97, l.7.

142

Ibid. p. 96, ll. 4-40.

143

Ibid. p.143, ll. 14-19.

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be then seen as a way to make it tangible, so by correlation "see" could be understood in its
metaphorical sense too, as the fountain has to be observed and considered only as it is presented as
the embodiment of Philonous's reasoning.

Those two examples exemplify Berkeley's use of mimesis, for if those passages are stylistically
more showing than telling, they are also revealing one of Berkeley's philosophical purpose, which is
to make a reality that he judges distorted by the Cartesian dualism dividing mind and body, and
leaving a whole part of knowledge in the shades of an unreachable realm visible again.

3.2.2 Mimesis in the perspective of a metaphorical statement : to enhance the

common features of experience.
What Berkeley does, in choosing the literary form to present his immaterialist theory, in the Three
Dialogues, is a certain use of the concept of mimesis, when applied to a narrative plot here a
fictional dialectical exchange that imitates human action but without ever doubling it, and is
then able to realise what Paul Ricur calls a "synthesis of the heterogeneous" . Berkeley's use of
mimesis is thus not a simple reproduction of reality, something that is even further stressed by the
presence of several metaphorical statements, in the dialogues, metaphors being notably what allows
one to see similarity through dissimilarity144.
By rejecting Cartesian dualism, and advocating what could be defined as a mental monism,
Berkeley aims to overcome the dissociation between mind and body, material and spiritual, by
denying to bodies any independent existence from the mind. If concrete objects exist according to
Berkeley, they are not material, if material means made of an unknown substratum which would be
the support of sensible qualities. But nonetheless, bodies are not denied their reality and for
Berkeley, there is no "disembodied mind"145 as Damasio defines it, to refer to Descartes's theory.
On the contrary, what may be noticed is that the use of metaphors in Berkeley's Three Dialogues,
appears when there seems to be a need to enhance the common features of experience, which is not

144

Cf. GREISCH Jean, Mise en Abme et Objeu, in GREISCH Jean (ed.), Le Texte comme objet
philosophique, Beauchesne, Paris, 1987, p 251-277.
DAMASIO Antonio, Descartes Error, Emotion, Reason and The Human Brain, Avon Books, NY, 1994. p.
250.
145

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something purely rational, but where feelings in their physicality have their share. By conjuring up
images which allow the transmission of the very feeling linked to this common experience, along
"with its intensity and its nature"146, Berkeley gives to his character the role of a poet, the one who
uses the "concrete poetical precision as it gives access to the phenomenal density of reality, without
deflating it by available information"147.

At the beginning of the Second Dialogue, Philonous wants to convey the idea that no one should
doubt the reality of things, as they are experienced through our senses. So what Philonous wishes to
share is the feeling of being physically immersed in the world, affected by it, the experience of our
being in the world. Philonous's motivation when he exhorts Hylas to "raise now [his] thoughts from
this ball of earth, to all those glorious luminaries that adorn the arch of heaven"148 , is to express a
form of ecstasy as well as the idea of a hierarchy existing in the divine creation, through the
traditional opposition between a terrestrial world and a celestial one. If we borrow the cognitive
linguists' terminology, using the opposition between "target" and "source" the source domain
being projected onto the target domain it could be possible to say that the source domain used to
describe the celestial world is handcraft. Philonous plays on the analogy between handcraft
creations and divine creation to describe what he presents as a shared experience of nature and of
the feeling of divine intentionality. As Berkeley rejects general abstract ideas, it is through its actual
manifestation, that divine intentionality is referred to, and metaphor is used as a way to give even
more salience to its sensible anchoring.
What Philonous assumes to be a common experience of transcendence, when being confronted to
nature, is therefore materialised through metaphor.
The idea to enhance the common features of experience is furthermore conveyed as Philonous is not
the only one to be gifted by Berkeley, of the ability to use metaphors. In the Third Dialogue, Hylas
tries to measure the epistemological impact of immaterialism:
"() what labyrinths of amusement, what fields of disputation, what ocean of false learning may be
avoided by that single notion of immaterialism. "149

NEVEUX Julie, John Donne, le sentiment dans la langue,Paris, ditions Rue dUlm, Presses de lcole
normale suprieure, 2013, p.87.
146

Ibid. p.88: "C'est en cela que cette prcision potique est concrte: elle donne accs l'paisseur
phnomnale du rel sans l'aplatir sous des informations disponibles".
147

148

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit. p.96, l.19-20.

149

Ibid. p.139, ll. 32-34.

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In this occurrence the several metaphors create a relation of identity, and more specifically of
materialisation, between "amusement" and "labyrinth", "disputation" and "fields", and "ocean" and
"false learning", as the preposition "of" whose semantic invariant is to signify a separation
following a preceding connection expresses the idea that A is made of B. Hylas's motivation
seems to express a feeling of both relief and bewildered awe, by giving a certain idea of space to
cognitive processes. He spatialises them, and by then stresses the emotional and cognitive
experience one undergoes when caught into such a process. What is underlined, is the shared
experience of the physicality of mental processes.
Therefore, this is how in the dialogues, mimesis in the perspective of metaphorical statements is
what makes visible, what points out to common experience, by exposing mental processes to reveal
their intricate link to physicality.

3.2.3 A paradoxical use of metaphor, in spite of Berkeleys theoretical rejection of

metaphor in philosophy, and what it might reveal.
Berkeley's thoughts concerning figurative language are notably expressed in De Motu, where he
states that "the philosopher should abstain from metaphor"150. This rejection of metaphor, may have
been drawn from the Aristotelian conception of metaphor, that is defined notably is the Poetics as
the transference of a name from one thing to another, a skill that cannot be taught, and a practice
that has to be avoided in scientific arguments, according to Aristotle151 .
Nevertheless, if Berkeley theoretically advocates to avoid using metaphor, in the Three Dialogues,
he does not abstain from displaying several examples of metaphorical statements, uttered by both
Hylas and Philonous. Yet, it seems that metaphors in the dialogues may have different functions or
status depending on the context.

When metaphors are used by Hylas's character, they seem to be designed to stress the lack of
credibility of the materialists' arguments. When Hylas states that matter is either a "support"152 or an

BERKELEY George, De Motu and The Analyst, ed. Douglas M. Jesseph, Kluwer Academic Publishers,
1992, 3, p.74.
150

151

Cf. WINKLER Kenneth (dir.), The Cambridge Companion to Berkeley, Cambridge University Press, 2005,
p155.
152

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit. p.84, l.2.

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"instrument"153, he does what Berkeley criticises, which is to create an abstract category out of a
sensible item, in order to define or describe something that is neither perceptible as an object nor as
a feeling, understood in its broad meaning. Yet, when Philonous criticises this idea of "support" or
"material substratum" defended by Hylas, he seems to yield to the temptation of rejecting the fault
not on abstract language, but on literal language, when he says that when he "speak[s] of objects as
existing in the mind or imprinted in the senses; [he] would not be understood in the gross literal
sense as when bodies are said to exist in a place () [His] meaning is only that the mind
comprehends or perceive them". What therefore appears as a metaphor, is however, a call not for an
interpretation of his words that would be other than a "literal" one, but rather other than a "gross
literal" one154. What is meant, is that Philonous admits that the words that are used to describe the
mind "are borrowed from bodies, but their application to mind is () perfectly literal"155 . It stays
literal because there is no transference of conceptions.

Nevertheless, what could be seen as a conceptual metaphor, is that according to Philonous's

argument, ideas or thoughts are things. It is notably evidenced in the Second Dialogue, when he
uses idea and thing indifferently in "I would fain know whether you think it reasonable to suppose,
that one idea or thing existing in the mind, occasions all other ideas"156 , or when he states in the
Third Dialogue that in "common talk, the object of our senses are not termed ideas but things"157.
This metaphor can be attributed to Berkeley himself, and not only to Philonous's character, as it also
appears at least twice in the Principles, for example in Principle XXIII, "But what is all this, I
beseech you, more than framing in your mind certain ideas which you call Books and Trees"158 or in
Principle XXXVIII, "I acknowledge it does so, the word idea not being used in common discourse
to signify the several combinations of sensible qualities, which are called things"159 . Therefore,
through this, what is exposed is Berkley's monism, according to which the mind would be itself a

153

Ibid. p.102, l.33.

154

WINKLER Kenneth (dir.), The Cambridge Companion to Berkeley, op.cit. p. 156.

155

Ibid.

156BERKELEY

George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit. p.95, ll. 12-14.

157

Ibid. p.132, l.24.

158

BERKELEY George, Principles of Human Knowledge, Ed. David R. Wilkins, 2002, op.cit. p.18.

159

Ibid. p.21.

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notion "in which ideas are real things"160, and language is therefore asked to be the one that makes
the correlation between "sensible things and the immediate objects of the understanding"161 .

Berkeley's language in the Three Dialogues can be defined as playing on a paradox. According to
Berkeley, language has to be accurate and always referring to sensible things, which requires to
avoid what he perceives as a conceptual blur created by metaphors, while at the same time, one of
his main statements which consists in predicating that ideas are sensible items, that is to say, that
ideas are things, is in itself a metaphor. Thereby, Berkeley's theoretical rejection of metaphor seems
more to apply to the question of motivation behind metaphorical statements, conceived by him as
misleading, when it is based on the erroneous belief that metaphors are meant to define what is
otherwise ineffable, not due to its intricacy, but due to the impossibility of experiencing it.
Berkeley's language, is therefore a language that mingles the requirements of philosophical sense,
and through his undeniable use of metaphor, the fulgurance of feelings.

3.3 Berkeleys language as a language of interoception calling for a

hybridity of style.
Another aspect of Berkeley's language in the Three Dialogues is that it appears to be infused by his
mental epistemological monism, that is to say by the predominance of perception, understood both
as the direct sensible apprehension of the world by one's body and the mental process that involves
both our understanding and imagination. The cause of our immediate perceptions being our body,
the question of the physicality of sensations and emotions in Berkeley's language could be dwelled
upon, notably through the concept of interoception, which is the body, the physicality involved in
our "various cognitive phenomena such as emotion, decision making, and even metacognition"162,
and that may play a role in Berkeley's combination of sense and sensibility, calling for his hybridity
of style.

3.3.1 Kairos in Berkeleys rhetoric and choice of styles.

PASANEK Brad, Metaphors of Mind: An Eighteenth-Century Dictionary, Johns Hopkins University Press,
2015, p.150.
160

161

Ibid.

SERBAN Maria, Interoception as a prototypical sense modality and its philosophical problems Online
paper: < https://www.academia.edu/1532287/Interoception_and_its_philosophical_problems>.
162

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One feature that may lead us to call Berkeley's language a language of interoception of this
particular intimate awareness of something both physical and ineffable, is the notion of kairos, that
appears as rather salient in his rhetoric and choice of styles.
The concept of kairos, which refers to a certain apprehension of time that is to say, of being in
the world as an incarnated entity is traditionally opposed to chronos which defines time as
immutable, as conveying the idea of a "logic of inevitability". Kairos has been often translated by
the notion of opportunity, understood as the apprehension of the appropriate time. That being said,
when it comes to language, the notion of kairos has two dimensions. On the one hand, knowing
kairos, in rhetorics, "means understanding an order that guides and shapes rhetorical action, whether
that order is given as absolute or socially constructed"163 . On the other hand, kairos can be
understood "to represent not the expected but its opposite: the uniquely timely () the radically
particular (). The challenge is to invent an action (rhetorical or otherwise) that will be understood
as uniquely meaningful within those circumstances."164

What can be remarked is that Berkeley's rhetoric includes those two meanings of kairos, "keeping
them in productive tension"165.
To begin with, Berkeley, in the Three Dialogues follows the rules of a traditional dispute, using
judicial rhetorics, drawing notably on the Platonic, Aristotelian or Ciceroni traditions, using logical
and rhetorical methods, such as the reductio ad absurdum technique, the syllogistic method, or the
maieutic

technique.166 Yet, by staging the unfolding of his ideas, through a fictional exchange

between two characters, Berkeley creates a temporality in which the characters' arguments are ruled
by the second dimension of kairos. Hylas and Philonous's speeches are always trying to answer this
challenge of conjuring up a meaning through a rhetorical action which is always particular to a
specific moment related to their dialectical exchange. What both of them are trying to achieve is to
seize the right time, the perfect opportunity in the course of their exchanges, where a particular
argument exposed in a particular moment, will be able to irrevocably turn the debate to their
advantage. Philonous's lyricism at the beginning of the Second Dialogue, which is meant to enhance
the evidence of the reality of our experience of the world, is triggered by Hylas's scepticism.
SIPIORA Phillip, BAUMLIN James S., Rhetoric and Kairos: Essays in History, Theory, and Praxis, State
University of New York Press, 2002, p. XII.
163

164

Ibid. p. XIII.

165

Ibid.

166

Cf. In this essay, points 1.2.3, 2.2.2, and 3.1.3.

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Similarly, the allegory of the fountain at the end of the Third Dialogue, is brought about by their
environment, and the setting, which is a garden. It is because Philonous sees a fountain, that he
decides to built such a parallel between the rise and fall of water and the thinking process he
induced Hylas to follow.

But the notion of kairos can also apply to Berkeley's choice of styles. While Berkeley follows in a
way the established and traditional order which presides over the form of the philosophical
dialogue, the purpose of the dialogues is not an open debate about an abstract and general concept,
such as love in Plato's Lysis or beauty as in Hippias Major. The Three Dialogues's purpose is the
acknowledgement of a particular theory, in a particular context, which is the poor reception of
Berkeley's previous work, The Principles of Human Knowledge. In this perspective the Three
Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, appear as the result of Berkley's seized opportunity when
facing an unexpected situation, his ability to respond to the unforeseen, in other words his
understanding of the second dimension of kairos. Thereby, his choice to use different styles in the
Three Dialogues may be seen as the consequence of such an understanding of kairos, as this
diversity reflects Berkeley's will to appeal to a readership, to win its benevolence and conviction, in
the particular context where his arguments displayed through an arid and normative style did not
have the intended impact he was seeking for.

3.3.2 Berkeleys language: intertwining concrete and abstraction.

Another distinctive feature of Berkeley's language which tends to show how interception may be a
relevant concept to define it, is the intertwining of concrete and abstraction.
When it comes to language it may be possible to define concrete, "a speech whose expressivity
refers to the particular experience of a speaking subject, to the cognitive specificity of this speaking
subject, as it shakes up the available categories" while an abstract speech would be "a speech set in
generality which does not call for involvement"167.

Berkeley's language in the Three Dialogues, can be understood as dealing with abstraction, insofar
as the subject of the dialogues, has to do with the notion of an objective truth, which by definition is
NEVEUX Julie, John Donne, le sentiment dans la langue,op.cit. p.47: "Sera dit concret un discours dont
l'expressivit renvoie l'exprience particulire du sujet parlant, la particularit cognitive sur sujet parlant,
telle qu'elle bouscule les catgories disponibles; sera dit "abstrait" un discours situ dans une gnralit
n'impliquant pas ce dernier".
167

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and has to be independent of anything particular. Indeed, Berkeley's aim is to prove the truth of his
theory, its potential universal validity through the presentation of immaterialism as a rational theory
in accordance with good and common sense. What is at stake in the dialogues, although it takes a
literary form, is not to convey the subjective truth of feelings as in poetry, nor to potentially play
with its nature and relevance through the creation of a reading compact. What is at stake, is the
seeking of truth as grounded on an objective demonstration, and objective arguments, independently
from the speaker's involvement.
Nevertheless, Berkeley does not follow the traditional philosophical methodology which can be
defined as a quest "not of facts to be accepted on authority, but of conceptions in whose light the
facts may be understood"168, so that the philosophical speech requires a form of cognitive
detachment from what is commented on. If philosophical speech is never abstracted from
experience, whether the reasoning be inductive of deductive, nevertheless, it is supposed to
apprehend things and concepts, while not being caught in the flood of their manifestation, but
standing upstream of it.

Yet, in the Three Dialogues, if Berkeley appears to be seeking an objective truth, he chooses to
unfold this quest in a dialectical and dialogical way, through both Hylas and Philonous's contrasting
voices. Berkeley's characterisation of Hylas and Philonous, creates a certain form of tension within
the philosophical speech, a tension within which the philosophical argument deploys itself.

What

is exposed through the dialogues, apart from a truth-seeking path, is the progressive evolution of
Hylas and Philonous's frame of mind, and by then, the construction of their particular status as
speakers and of their dialectical relationship. As such, Berkeley's philosophical argumentation is
infused by speeches which also reflect the "linguistic specificity" of the speakers who express "an
experience that is wholly subjective"169 , as it is in Hylas and Philonous's dialectical confrontation
that is conceived the possibility for a certain truth to appear.
Thereby, in this perspective, Berkeley's language in the Three Dialogues may ultimately be defined
as "concrete", for philosophical arguments are given through the "expressive singularity of the
speaking subject, that gives access to his particular and entire reality"170.

168
169

COLLINGWOOD R. G. An Essay on Philosophical Method, p. 16.

NEVEUX Julie, John Donne, le sentiment dans la langue,op.cit. p.47.

170Ibid.

p.48: " La langue concrte est une langue qui exprime la singularit expressive du sujet parlant, qui
donne accs sa ralit particulire et totale."

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Furthermore, what can be noticed is that Berkeley's philosophy, his empiricism, is not in itself
dialogical so that it would have logically called for the use of the dialogue form, as it is the case for
Plato's philosophy.171 Berkeley's choice can therefore be assumed to have another kind of
motivation which is in fact linked to the concrete language of the dialogues. What Berkeley may
have wanted to show is not just a direct philosophical argument, but "what one of the characters
[Philonous] believes and why he believes it"172, in order to lead the reader to side with him and be
convinced by the immaterialist thesis, through "a psychological description of belief"173 , that is to
say, by the particular experience of thought that this character undergoes.

3.3.3 An epistemology based on the experience of interoception : a style that tries to

embrace the unutterable.
When Berkeley states the need to "remove the mist or the veil of words"174, he targets the process of
generalisation from a particular item and vice and versa. Yet, this unveiling does not seem to
concern the question of the divine mysteries, the experience of what is perceived as the
manifestation of the divine within the created world, that are things that remain indescribable, and
only graspable through analogies and metaphors175.

Berkeley confers epistemic sovereignty to perception, which means that sensations, "have the
capacity to represent or be about real objects, as they are intentional entities, as well as the capacity
to signify."176 As a result, for Berkeley, everything in the world is "mind dependent"177. Therefore,
the relation one has to objects of the world, is necessarily intentional, that is to say linked to the
subject's specific mental disposition when experiencing a certain sensation, which does not have
any exterior reality, that would be independent from the mind.

SCOLNICOV Samuel, Beyond language and literature in CORNELLI Gabirele, (ed.) Platos Styles and
Characters: Between Literature and Philosophy, De Gruyter, 2016, p. 7.
171

172

STONEHAM, Tom, Berkeley's World: An Examination of the Three Dialogues,op.cit. p 20.

173

Ibid.

BERKELEY George, The Works of George Berkeley, Volume IV, The Common Place Book, Alexander
Campbell Fraser (ed.), The Clarendon Press, 1871, p.443.
174

175

Cf. BRYKMAN Genevive, Berkeley et le voile des mots, Vrin, 1993, p.12.

176

FIELDS Keota, Berkeley's Immaterialism: An Interpretation and Critique , op.cit. p.7.

177

STONEHAM, Tom, Berkeley's World: An Examination of the Three Dialogues,op.cit. p. 83.

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This idea is notably evidenced by the argumentation about the sensation of heat, in the First
Dialogue, where Philonous wants to convince Hylas, that since a great heat cannot be felt without
provoking a feeling of pain, and that pain cannot be said to exist within the perceived object, if we
suppose that it is an exterior and senseless item. Therefore, the object is necessarily ontologically
related to our mind whenever it is perceived.178 That is why, for Berkeley, no general abstract ideas
can be drawn from what is always a particular perception. And that is why language, should
epitomise this perceptive sovereignty, which is notably based on our physical sensations.
What Berkeley seems to point at, through his mental monism, is the intricate relation between the
mind and sensible ideas, that is to say between body and mind, when it comes to our faculty of
understanding; what is intimately and physically felt in any thought process related to experience.
Labelling Berkeley's language, as a language of interoception, might appear as a bit far-fetched,
notably as one has to be wary of labels.

However, in the Second Dialogue, when Philonous tries to convince Hylas of the reality of things
displayed in the world as it is immediately perceived, what Philonous expresses is his bewildered
awe in front of the divine creation. His certainty about the reality of things is based on what he
presents as a lack of actual knowledge about the very nature and the logical order of such a creation,
that is to say on an intimate feeling, produced by his beholding of nature's phenomena, nature being
what "still stands out ungrasped, a surplus age immeasurable."179

As such, reality of things, in this passage, is evidenced by a feeling of the sublime, of what exceeds
our senses, to excite an internal and unutterable perception in the mind, which is at the same time
utterly physical. That is why it can be stated that interoception is a significant element of the feeling
of the sublime, presented here, as an epistemological and ontological proof.

By dwelling upon the idea that we cannot deny the reality of bodies, but only as they are existing
within the mind, and that language has to be cleared from the illusion of spiritual and material
dualism, Berkeley appears as trying to frame a language that would capture this sub limis "mentalphysical" process which is at the heart of the causal chain of our apprehension of reality's
phenomena. In this perspective, Berkeley's language is what intends to clear the blurred space of the

178

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit. p.64 to 67.

179

BERKELEY George, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, op.cit. p.96, l.38.

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unutterable, by solving and dissolving within immaterialism the question of the ungraspable
link between body and mind.

Conclusion
To conclude, if style can be defined as the embodiment of thought, the inside looking out conceived
as the expressive identity of a text, as a result, it is also what defines a given text in terms of genre.
A philosophical text will be construed through stylistic devices belonging to the standard element
that constitutes a philosophical style, that Berel Lang defined as the style of method180. And even
though it may contain other features, such as literary ones, it is usually not necessary to consider
them, in order to understand the meaning of the writing. That is why philosophical dialogues such
as the Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, may be seen as stylistic hybrids. In the Three
Dialogues the elements of fiction are essential to understand Berkeley's aim, and solely focusing on
the characters' discourse would put aside their status as fictional characters, and the reason why they
were created as such.
This is why the main question of this essay was to wonder to what extent Berkeleys stylistic
hybridity in the Three Dialogues can be related to his immaterialism and to his philosophy of
language.
First, it has been argued that the plurality of styles at work in the Three Dialogues, is a plurality of
means for a same purpose, which is to appeal to one's common sense. The literary, rhetorical and
philosophical moments, previously studied through different linguistic and stylistic analyses, thus,
correspond to Berkeley's strategy of argumentation. Then, it has been suggested, through the study
of references to common sense, matter and immaterialism as well as of several structures used to
refer to those notions, that the Three Dialogues exposes an implicit definition of immaterialism,
grounded on a positivist ontology of lexicon. Eventually, through a focus on the semiological and
ontological status of the characters, and the use of mimesis and metaphor in Berkeley's style, as
180LANG

BEREL, "The Style of Method: repression and representation in the genealogy of philosophy", in
ECK Caroline, (ed.), The Question of Style in Philosophy and the Arts, op. cit. p18-36.

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well as the very nature of his language that this style embodies, the status of the literary genre, as
used by Berkeley, has been questioned.

Berkeley, in writing the Three Dialogues, did not only present his theories in a more favourable
light than in the Principles, but he also defined his philosophy by underlining the importance of
common sense as a common sense philosophy, this term being understood in its literal meaning.
In consequence, it may be possible to argue that the Three Dialogues' use of the literary genre
shaped Berkeley's philosophy, showing the intertwining of form and content, style and meaning.
Berkley's stylistic hybridity in the Three Dialogues is, in this perspective, inherent to Berkeley's
immaterialism and philosophy of language. In this piece of philosophy Berkeley tried to remedy to
what he thought was the major flaw in language; the inability to truthfully convey one's knowledge
of the world. In this perspective, what might be noted as a paradox is the fact that Hylas and
Philonous are also in a way, concrete metaphors of abstract notions, and they have been created
through a process of particular situations, or states of minds, the belief in matter versus the love of
knowledge. They are turned into personified "ideas suitable to be the signification of general
terms"181 , or more accurately, the signification of archetypal ways of thinking, which is precisely
the Lockean process of abstraction that Berkeley rejects.

But, nevertheless, in staging a confrontation of ideas between two characters, Berkeley did not only
set up the refutation of the materialist theory through an argumentative discourse, but he literally
showed Hylas (Hyl), the incarnation of matter, being defeated, both as a character and as a
concept. So, contrary to Oscar Wilde's statement about the world182, in Berkeley's fictional world,
the play is perfectly cast and his staging in the Three Dialogues allows language to fully perform
the part that Berkeley assigned to it, while exposing without solving the internal and conceptual
paradoxes and hybridisations of this empiricist common sense philosophy.

181

STONEHAM,T., Berkeley's World: An Examination of the Three Dialogues,Oxford Uni. Press, 2002, p225.

WILDE Oscar, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, First World Library - Literary Society, 2004, p.18: "The world is
a stage, but the play is badly cast".
182

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