♠ Three of Spades
the cosmological family
The Passivity Argument
George Berkeley
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous
DemonstrativeConcludes that something exists.
- Argument form
- Disjunctive syllogism (produced by our will or by another spirit's; not by ours)
- Concludes to
- Intelligent agent (a spirit distinct from us, producing the ideas of sense by its will)
- Premise ground
- Metaphysical (nothing but a spirit can produce an idea; to act is to will)
- Modal strength
- Actual
- What it licenses
- Period
- Eighteenth Century (1713)
- Tradition
- Idealist (immaterialist)
Further reading
- Source text, public domain
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonousthreedialoguesbe00berkrich.pdf - A scholarly account
Read an exposition of the argument - A principal objection
Read the objection in full
This formulation is ours, composed from the primary source and compressed to fit the card; the argument admits of other statements. Objections have been made to every argument in the deck; where one is linked above, it is chosen by us, not written by us.
ergocards.com/passivity
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