Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous

In Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists

George Berkeley 1713

Three conversations examine whether objects exist independently of the minds that perceive them. Water that feels warm to one hand and cold to another becomes a test of what senses reveal.

134 pages 2h 35m reading time

The best-known and most readable statement of idealism (the view that the world is made of minds and their ideas), and a classic of early modern philosophy.
Argues that physical things exist only as they are perceived, so that a tree or a table is nothing more than the colors, shapes, and feelings a mind experiences.
Argues that God perceives everything all the time, which is why objects go on existing when no person is looking at them.
Its arguments about the limits of the senses shaped David Hume, who carried them further, and later thinkers such as Immanuel Kant felt they had to answer it.
Still taught as a model of philosophy written as lively dialogue, and it is often used to introduce students to the question of how we know anything exists outside our own minds.

Johnson kicked a stone

The writer Samuel Johnson famously kicked a large stone and said "I refute it thus" to dismiss Berkeley's ideas.
Second try after a flop

Berkeley wrote it after his earlier book on the same ideas was mocked or ignored by readers.
Names that give it away

Hylas comes from the Greek word for matter, and Philonous means "lover of mind."
Written for everyday readers

Berkeley chose a friendly conversation so that ordinary readers, not just experts, could follow his arguments.