Saksek 1

Dustin Saksek
Dr. Borlik
Shakespeare
5/11/14
Shakespearean Epistemology
Throughout Shakespeares writings themes are touched upon and explored that do not
formally become subjects of academic and/or intellectual debate for a significant number of
years later. While the subjects were acknowledged from the ancients, such as Platos cave
metaphor, and lightly touched upon, they were done so most prolifically and with the most
lasting power in Shakespeares work. An especially present anachronistic theme by subject title,
is the presence of the Cartesian theatre in his plays. While there is over 30 years separation
between Shakespeares final play and Descartes meditations in which he presents the concept of
the Cartesian theatre, of the Evil Demon problem, the issue Descartes presents is loaded
throughout Shakespeares literature. The following will explain what the Cartesian Theatre is,
and highlight points throughout various works of Shakespeare that it can be seen present in.
The Cartesian Theatre is established in the first meditation of Descartes Meditations on
First Philosophy. He goes through a series of steps to strip away trust in what is normally
accepted as foundations for knowledge. Beginning he addresses his senses,
Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired
either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time
I have found that the sense deceive, and it is prudent never to trust
completely those who have deceived us even once. (Descartes 76)

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This doubt is in reference to objects which are very small or in the distance (76). Moving on
he addresses the issue of dreaming.
How often, asleep at night, am I convinced of just such familiar
events that I am here in my dressing-gown, sitting by the fire
when in fact I am lying undressed in bed! (77)
Ultimately he concludes that I see plainly that there are never any sure signs by means of which
being awake can be distinguished from being asleep (77). So now sense and any memory or
interaction with others have been called into question. Third he goes on to describe the
Evil/Malicious Demon scenario.
I shall think that the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds
and all external things are merely the delusions of dreams which he
has devised to ensnare my judgement. (79)
The postulates that all perceived, and all reasoned, is an illusion. Ones consciousness is tied
down and presented with images, like a film, consisting of memories, senses, and all logic, which
one believes to be their life, and reality. That, the Cartesian Theatre, is what will now be
contrasted to Shakespeares work.
The entirety of A Midsummer Nights Dream is an excellent example of Cartesian
Theatre, and Pucks Epilogue is a strong illustration of it in play. It begins if we shadows have
offended, suggestion those on stage, the shadows to be mere projections of the real, or
imitations (William Shakespeare. A Midsummer Nights Dream Epilogue 4). The proported
reality of the play is put up to be an illusion by a character who held power over the perception
of reality, Robin, Puck. He maintains this in saying
Think but this and all is mended,

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That you have but slumbered here,

While these vision did appear. (Epilogue 2-4)
This is a command, requiring the thoughts of the audience be bent to align with what the speaker
desires them to be. He is controlling their sense of reality. He stages that should they follow
him in this, then,
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding than a dream
Gentles, do not repremend.
If you pardon, we will mend. (Epilogue. 5-8)
This promotes the solipsistic state of disbelief in reality. That the reality presented in the play
has no bearing, because it is all entirely illusionary, and this illusion is controlled by Puck, who
can stand in as the Cartesian Malicious Demon, bending the audiences/our perception of
reality to his own will. This notion is further enforced as Puck states
And as I am an honest puck,
If we have unearned luck.
Now to scape the serpents tongue,
We will make amends ere long. (Epilogue.9-12)
Essentially, do as I say, obey my command, and Ill make you comfortable. You will have no
truth, you will be under my control, as I desire, but you will be comfortable. Lastly, he comes
out saying
Else the puck a liar call.
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends.

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And Robin shall restore amends. (Epilogue 13-16)

He briefly proposes the notion of refuting his illusionary reality, anxious to even suggest it, as is
suggested by it being no more than a slight quip at the end of the speech, a light afterthought. He
jumps to good night, be friendly, well make it better, accept us as having power over your sense
of reality, accept illusion, and be happy. Accept the power held over you. Puck, also, was the
character actively altering perceptions of reality throughout the entire play, making him a well
established stand-in for the mastermind behind the Cartesian Theater. This is also supported in
being written in poetry. It provides a spell binding effect, giving a demonstration of power to be
exerted over not only the other characters, but the audience, by puck.
The play Hamlet provides a number of impressive philosophical speculations, Stanley
Cavell writes here specifically on skepticism, countering another argument. While not a full
blown solipsistic, malicious demon scenario, he highlights how epistemics are drawn into play
here, and how they essentially drive the plot of the production, under the interpretation by W.W.
Gregs. That the ghost is a figment of Hamlets imagination, created to facilitate his own desire
to exact a revenge upon a slight he feels done to him by Claudius. While the subject written on
is predominantely of the Mousetrap show, this speculation
links the question of the Ghosts veracity to the issue of the
Ghosts general mode of existence (as real or imaginary) more
tightly than the matter of the dumb-show requires. (Cavell 192)
The Mousetrap being an attempt to find evidence for the ghosts accusations is an attempt at
finding epistemic justification that Hamlet can act on, as he does not trust his sense. His lack of
confidence in knowledge and experience is what drives the entire play. Thus, the entirety of the

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play can then be considered as an attempt to escape epistemic solipsism, a trying escape from the
Cartesian doubt he has about his motives.
Speaking specifically of the Mousetrap itself, however, it causes for an interesting metatheatrical situation. There are four layers here at work; The author, the dumbplay, the play itself,
and the audience. Until the dumbplay takes place only three levels are at play, the author, the
play, and the audience, so you have;
Author Demon
Dumbplay X
Play Illusion
Audience Reality
The interaction here is that the audience is subject to the illusion of the play, which the author,
acting the role of the malicious demon, has created, through suspension of disbelief. Once the
dumbplay comes into action, however, something interesting occurs;
Author Demon
Dumbplay Illusion
Play Reality
Audience Reality
The characters in the play are no longer characters of a play, but an audience watching a play,
just as the audience watching them. The dumbplay is Hamlets attempt to resolve his own
epistemic skepticism, an attempt to see past his own Cartesian theatre, but he merely creates
another illusion, however suggestive it may be, which he falls further into as he simply watches
his ideation of what occurred in his past, take place on a stage as a fiction. The illusion shifts
and the Author, the malicious demon shaping reality, controlling the senses, merely has another

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wall put in between him and the reality he controls. This places all of the witnessing characters
in the same position as the actual audience, blending them together into the same level so that
you have
Author Demon
DumbPlay Illusion
Play - X
Audience (characters included) Reality
The author is never revealed, true reality is never established, and the characters on stage place
themselves on the same metaphysical level, equally epistemicically challenged by the
increasingly blurred line between reality and illusion. This presents the argument that trying to
hard to see the man behind the curtain results more in confusion than learning, leading further
into doubt of reality, and increasing the Cartesian doubt of just what is real, and what is just a
picture on the screen.
In As You Like It the character Rosalind takes on the role the demon in controlling/manipulating
the sense of others when she first dresses as a man;
Were it not better,
Because that I am more than a common tall,
That I did suit me all points like a man,
A gallant curtal-axe upon my thigh,
A boar-spear in my hand, and in my heart,
Lie there what hidden womans fear there will.
Well have a swashing and a martial outside,
As many other mannish cowards have,

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That do outface it with their semblances.

(William Shakespeare As You Like It 1.3.108-116)
Here Rosalind in describing how she will act with a swashing and a martial outside, armed
with weapons that themselves double as phallic metaphors, and through these, regardless of what
cannot be seen, present herself, and be believed, to be a man. In manipulating what the senses
can observe, the perception of those who she affects are deceived, similarly to how Descartes
demon might deceive us through presenting us with a fiction world. And as those affected by the
demons manipulation might never be freed without it willingly stripping away the curtain and
projector both, without striking the set and burning the stage, it is not until she willingly reveals
herself that all is set right with others perception of her, and in turn, their world view, is restored
Shakespeares writing is absolutely loaded with the acting out of intense philosophical
debates that predates Descartes, Dostoevsky, Neitchze, et al. Here the prevalence of skepticism
is shown to be prevalent throughout the comedies, the tragedies, and while not elaborated on
here, A Winters Tale, too, is loaded with epistemic skepticism. Shakespeare may not have been
the only thinking on these subjects of his days, but he was among the most prolific and profound
of them, as can be seen by the sheer mass of work available by him, and the immense quality of
it presented, all doing homage to his genius.

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Works Cited
Cavell, Stanley. Disowning Knowledge in Six Plays of Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
1987. Print.
Descartes, Ren , John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch. Descartes Selected
Philosophical Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988. Print.
William Shakespeare - Stephen Greenblatt - Walter Cohen - Jean E.Howard - Katharine
EisamanMaus - Andrew Gurr - W.W. Norton - 2008