 On these these excerpts from the dialogues the three dialogues given to us by Barclay He's asking the question Or he's trying to answer the questioners to say are there material objects or is there a material substance? now Just to be clear He thinks that there are trees around me sure if you were out here say yeah there are trees around you there be trees and grass and and Rocks and everything else. He's not doing Descartes Descartes is going to say you know at least in the first meditation you don't know that there's anything around you You can't know that Barclay says yeah, you know that there are trees and that there's grass and the sky and bugs and animals And everything else you know that However None of us material None of it has a material substance So in this dialogue, you know, we have the two characters Phelanus and Hylis Phelanus in case you haven't figured out it's basically Barclay Barclay's voice box and Hylis is kind of the counterpoint to Phelanus Now before you dismiss this conclusion too fast, you know take a minute to listen to his reasoning Because he's he's you know once again. He's not saying that there's nothing around me No, he takes seriously the idea that there are things around you And seriously the idea that you can know that there are things around you In fact, it's one of things that both Phelanus and Hylis agree on really quickly is if your theory of what exists or your theory of knowledge Reduces the skepticism to claim that there's nothing around you. That's a bad theory So Barclay is not doing that Barclay saying no, there's very definitely things around you Just none of its material Another reason why he says this It's because he takes very seriously an idea which you probably give at least some credence and The idea is that if you can't see it It doesn't exist so the first thing that Hylis and Phelanus have to do is Set up a distinction between sensation and object, okay Now sensation is simply the act of the mind perceiving. So I'm looking around me and I see greens I see blue the sky. I see some browns from the trunks, right? So I see greens blues Browns I smell the air. It's humid and it's warm The ground is rough. It's solid. These are all the sensations that I have Now the object is the the thing that's perceived. Okay, so looking around me and this is where Hylis and Phelanus agree, right? Phelanus is not going for skepticism. He says no, I do know the things around me. So the objects of sensation are the trees You know the the grass the leaves the rocks the sky the breeze the air all of that are the our objects now You know just to reiterate they agree on the distinction Now the question isn't whether We have whether we perceive the objects around us, right? The question the question isn't that the question is What are the objects that we perceive? So the next distinction that Barclay makes is the distinction between an idea and a notion Now an idea is what's immediately perceived in the mind In a notion it is not a notion You might Better think of notion as suspicion. We might say suspicion these days. That's supposed to notion So the idea is is this so I'm looking around me now and I have lots of ideas I have lots of ideas of trees and grass and sky or that's immediately perceived. That's right here right in front of me It's in my consciousness, right? It's it's it's right there All right, I see the trees and I see I Even see that trail right there. I see that trail. I have an idea of the trail Now I have an idea of the trail But I don't know what put it there, right? I don't know what made the trail now I have lots of notions. I have suspicions. All right, maybe it was volunteers volunteers made the trail Maybe it was animals animals made the trail. Maybe it was city workers, right? Maybe nobody made it at all. Maybe this is just the way the water flowed down the hillside. Those are all notions None of those are immediately perceived in the mind. Not a single one of them, right? so an idea is what I have immediately would I immediately perceive in my mind and Barclays pushing on this said look the ideas are what you know, right? That's your knowledge is What's immediately perceived in the mind? Notions are not. I don't know that city workers made this. I don't know the volunteers made this I don't know the animals or water or whether it just happened I don't know any of those because none of that's immediately perceived those are all related to My ideas right so I have an idea of the path and have the curvature of the path and and the trees I have ideas of all of that But I only have notions only his suspicions as to what made that so its ideas contrasted to notions and For Barclays ideas are where it's at ideas Or is your knowledge so this brings us to material substance or materialist substratum So this is what Highless thinks and what we think you typically what we think exists, too So we look around us and we perceive green and brown and the sky and everything else Now green and brought a green and brown and blue and warm and rough Right. These are all modes. A mode is a way a thing can exist Let's say that again a mode is a way a thing can exist or even quality somebody said qualities are like are pretty much like modes So this is a way that this material substance here exists. It exists Rough and exists brown And I can peel off the bark in a certain way and that's the kind of fibrous it So these are modes to this thing. It's tall You you can't see how tall this is but it's a bit taller than I am Uh, it's saw saw the leaf in the ground, right? I can't I can move a little bit But I can't move it too much right these are all modes for this material substance and what a material substance is Is what supports the modes? The material substance is here and it's supporting in some way the brown The rigid that sound the rough The material substance is not itself those modes Right. It's not identical to those modes But it is instead what supports the modes So now both High list and fill in this are going to say yeah, this is a tree And high list is going to say what this tree is as a material substance That exists in particular kinds of ways Now this is kind of specific language But you know, we tend to do the same thing, right? We talk about this tree It's being a material thing and it has properties or has a chemical composition or Here we try to give it some kind of description of physics and that's fine Right. High list is going to say yeah, those are modes Right. It's chemical composition. That's a mode It's uh You know properties physical properties in terms of being rigid And uh that you know being a plant right that those are all modes Okay So this is what high list says There's a material substance here Now it's not the modes that you see there's a material substance underneath it There's a material substance supporting it Supporting holding those modes in place Uh, but the material substance is not itself those modes All right, so we have Our different definitions, okay now Kind of the rough version maybe like a first approach in understanding what fill in this is going to say is that um Now when the first objection the fill in this brings it gets high list is this and say look You know you you and I both agree. We look at this tree And we say uh, there's a tree here And we both agree That we perceive Extension right that just means that's physical dimensions. We perceive its length. That's width. It's depth. We perceive brown and rough That sound we perceive all of that. We don't just agree about that that much we agree on Now what fill in this says is that much Is what I have is of what I have an idea I immediately perceive That brown that net that sound there, okay the extension. I perceive all of that That's the only way I know that Right is through perception Okay So fill in this says of that much I have an idea now To get to material substance We have to say there's something underneath it There's something underneath it And this is where uh high list has distinction between modes and the material substance, right Both high list and fill in this agreed they perceive the modes all right And then fill in this pushes high list on this say yeah, you perceive the modes But you say the material substance is what supports the modes Right the mode is the modes are extension brown and rough But the material substance is none of those right. It's what perceives the modes It's because it's what supports the modes Okay Well, then you don't have an idea of material substance because that's not immediately in your mind You have to suppose that it's there you have to Have some kind of suspicion that is there And this is where we get you know where uh fill in this is really pushing on the distinction between an idea and a notion And at this point high list is like, oh, wow, you're right. You know, there's There's uh, I say there's a material substance there, but so far I just have a notion Now fill in this is going to take one step further and say look Yeah, you have a notion of it, but even the notion isn't going to work So the next move that fill in this makes is really pushing on this distinction between material substance and mode material substance and mode so Here's what uh fill in this is going to do fill in this is going to take how to say look, you know here we we perceive the trees And they're at different extensions right different depths and then there's the hill behind all of it The hill is furthest back and that's that's the furthest thing that that's the thing that's furthest back we perceive And we both agree that we perceive extension. We both have an idea of extension That extension is immediately present in our minds Okay, so this much high both high list and fill in this agree Now a fill in this is going to push on high list some more say look, um If you say that there's also material substance right then the claim is is we have this extension here Which we perceive and that's an idea And then you say there's a material substance supporting the extension so Here's a question Is the material substance extended? Now it might look like he's just kind of repeating himself, but but his point is this that look I perceive the extension There's the extension. That's it right there Now is the material substance Underneath all of it doing that To a tie list says yes. Yes, there's material substance underneath all of it. Okay, so then we have the extension And then we have the material substance beneath it But then the material substance is now extended again So I have the extension already. That's the mode Now I have the material substance to say it's also extended, but that's another mode So then I have extension under extension okay Well, then Same question. Is that material substance extended? Well, then we say yes, right? We say we'll try it. We'll say yes It you know it has an extension underneath it. So then we have the extension the mode which is Which is on top of another extension which is on top of another extension which is on top of the substance That underlies all of it But that's impossible or you know at the very least Weir because now we have this is set up for this infinite regress of extension all the way down. We never reach substance And that's at best weird if not impossible now. What's highly supposed to say that matter is not extended That seems bizarre So a fill in this concludes from this is look we have A deep problem here with this idea of material substance You're not going to say material substance isn't extended But you're also not going to agree to this infinite regress of Uh extension Now Already, you know, you've already agreed that you're feeling this is talking about highly So you've already agreed that the material substance substratum is not an idea. It's at best a notion But now this notion is starting to result in deep deep confusions so Why should we accept this notion? It's final argument that filliness provides It's kind of a generalization Of the last argument dealing with extension so What filliness and highlights both agree on is that when I perceive these modes when I perceive green and blue And and all of that. Well, that's in my mind right, that's in my mind And high list uh takes the further step and says, yeah, that's in my mind Uh, and there's something out there which is somehow supporting These modes there's that material substance out there supporting the modes. Okay, so If I'm if I if an object has this has these modes has color and extension And sound and taste and and all this it has these modes High list says if it has these modes, then there's something That's supporting these modes when I both Or at least filliness kind of pushes high list to to see this. Well, if there's something supporting these modes If there's something the supporting extension supporting color supporting sound supporting all of this Then whatever that is the material substance whatever it is. It's not those modes It has another color nor figure nor extension. It has no sight. No taste. No smell. No hearing nothing like that so looking at this you know looking at this Metal rail here, right? We high list is saying there is something underneath all of this But since all of this are are modes It itself is not any of those modes So material substance has no color has no extension has no sound no taste nor smell Well, if it doesn't have any of this You and I in Philanus are just kind of looking our house at this point say so you're saying there's something there which has no qualities Well, that thing doesn't exist There's nothing there if it has no qualities if it has no modes at all It's it doesn't exist all right Well, if it doesn't exist and there's not something supporting all of These modes the modes just exist, right? That's what that's what the thing is are the modes Not what's supporting the modes Well, so this kind of wraps this kind of leads very quickly to um Philanus is reductio is you know High list wants to say that this there's something that's supporting the modes and then that there is not something that's supporting the modes I mean, that's what follows from his reasoning so in the end if we say if we start out with the assumption that If I perceive an object with these modes, then there's something supporting the modes We reached the conclusion that it's false that I perceive an object with these modes and there's something I'm saying if i'm perceiving these objects, then there's something supporting the modes Well, then all we're left with is I perceive These modes I perceive the object that is color That is sound That is extension that is taste that is touch all these perceptions That's what I perceive and that's what it is There's no material substance beneath it