Well, then, are you content to admit that opinion for true, which upon examination shall appear most agreeable to common sense, and remote from scepticism.
-- Philonous (The First Dialogue paragraph 2)

Importance: With these lines, Philonous issues the crucial challenge to Hylas: to examine both views and adopt whichever one leads to the least skepticism. This challenge serves as the guiding structure for most of the the Dialogues, as Hylas attempts to show that immaterialism is deeply absurd, while Philonous argues that the belief in matter is the root of all skepticism. It also shows the way Berkeley privileges common sense as the highest ideal in philosophy.

When I look on sensible things in a different view, considering them as so many modes and qualities, I find it necessary to suppose a material substratum, without which they cannot be conceived to exist.
-- Hylas (The First Dialogue paragraph 1)

Importance: Three Dialogues uses Hylas as a stand-in for various contemporary philosophers and opponents of Berkeley...