 Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, brought to you with the support of the philosophy department at King's College London and the LMU in Munich, online at historyoffilosophy.net. Today's episode, Hast Any Philosophy in the William Shakespeare. When I first started my new job in Munich back in 2012, one of the delights in store was my first visit to the dedicated Shakespeare library at the LMU. I walked in and stood there just gazing at the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves full of volumes about the greatest literary figure of the English language. Editions, translations, studies of every possible theme, every aspect of historical context, comparisons to authors of the same time period and of other periods, you name it. Now, I work in ancient philosophy, so I'm used to the fact that more has been written about Plato and Aristotle than anyone could ever hope to read. But Shakespeare studies, I now realize, are of a whole different order. This was secondary literature of truly mountainous proportions. Finally, I walked in, started to look around, and noticed that there was a second room. So now, some years later, I feel the need to explain why I'm adding my own pebble to the top of that mountain, if only in the form of a few podcasts. After all, there are plenty of podcasts about Shakespeare, too. One justification would be if it were fresh and original to approach Shakespeare from a specifically philosophical direction, which is sort of true. The introduction to a fairly recent companion to Shakespeare and philosophy calls this particular area of scholarship an emerging and comparatively small field. But when the comparison is the rest of Shakespeare studies, that isn't saying much. In fact, Edinburgh University Press has a whole book series dedicated to philosophy and Shakespeare, and there are monographs and collections of articles on topics like ethics in Shakespeare, Shakespeare's political philosophy, Shakespeare as a philosopher of history, and skepticism in Shakespeare. Then there are comprehensive studies like the readable and insightful Shakespeare the Thinker by A.D. Nuttall, which ranges over many philosophical topics in a wide gamut of the plays. So in approaching this daunting topic, I should say right at the outset that I am not asking what this podcast can do for Shakespeare, but what Shakespeare can do for this podcast. In this episode, I'm going to explore how some abiding themes of epistemology and political philosophy from the Reformation period are reflected in the plays. This will allow us to understand what it could mean to approach a figure like Shakespeare as a philosopher, and also show us how ideas like skepticism and resistance to tyranny were being reflected in a very different kind of literature than we've usually been discussing. Of course, Shakespeare was a stone cold genius, so he's not necessarily representative of late 16th and early 17th century attitudes. He was born in 1564 and died in 1616. On the other hand, his plays had a much more popular audience in mind than, say, a treatise by Richard Hooker or Thomas More. When Shakespeare, for instance, thematizes skepticism in Othello and Hamlet, the groundlings who could only afford standing room tickets at the Globe Theatre were apparently expected to appreciate those themes. No less a commentator than C.L.R. James stated, Shakespeare was himself the first intellectual whose life has been shaped by the communication of ideas to the general public. But I don't just want to use Shakespeare to go back over ideas that are already familiar to us. In episodes to come, I'll be using him to introduce a few themes we haven't yet explored, or at least not as much as I'd like. Individualism, which makes a nice pairing with Hamlet, attitudes towards the newly contacted Americas, as thematized in The Tempest, and witchcraft. No prizes for guessing which play will be relevant there, and it would be bad luck to say its name anyway. Before we dive in, I should mention that even if Shakespeare is not usually considered a philosopher and received no formal training in the subject, he certainly knew something about philosophy. Troilus and Cressida alludes to a passage in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, which declares the young, unfit hearers for lectures on moral philosophy. Plato's Alcibiades also seems to be referenced in this play, and I guess it must have also influenced the passage in Julius Caesar, where Brutus is encouraged to see his own reflection in Cassius. We find Stoicism mentioned in The Taming of the Shrew, let's be no stoics nor no stalks, I pray. Not a great pun by his standards, but a noteworthy passage, since as we'll be seeing, the stoics are important in Shakespeare's thought. Even more telling are some passages where Shakespeare has characters say things about philosophy itself. There's a more genuinely amusing line in Much Ado About Nothing, never yet philosopher that could endure the toothache patiently. And in Romeo and Juliet, when the Friar tells Romeo to seek solace in philosophy, Adversity's Sweet Milk, Romeo replies, Hang up, philosophy! Unless philosophy can make a Juliet, displant a town, reverse a prince's doom, it helps not, it prevails not, talk no more. Not advice will be following, of course, but it does lead us to the first main theme I wanted to discuss, namely Shakespeare's tendency towards skepticism. It has been observed that, like Montaigne, whose writings he must have known at least by the time he wrote The Tempest, Shakespeare was radically skeptical about the value of reason in human life. Attuned as he was to the nuances and complexities of human psychology, he is doubtful that the dry and abstract reassurances of philosophy can provide genuine comfort in adversity. This may remind us of Philip Sidney and his argument that poetry has a better chance of instilling virtue than philosophy does. Deeper still, Shakespeare often suggests that no precepts of moral philosophy, indeed no reasons at all, can explain his character's behavior. Take, for instance, Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, who, when asked to explain his vindictive pursuit of Antonio, says, I give no reason, nor I will not, more than a lodged hate and a certain loathing. Such tragic characters as Hamlet and Macbeth lack self-knowledge and perversely refuse to acquire it. This overturns our expectation, rooted in Aristotle, even if he worked with a more basic idea of recognition in his poetics, that the main character in a tragedy should undergo some kind of transformative realization about themselves. It's a Shakespearean insight that we are just as much, if not more, driven by self-delusion as by rational analysis of our own motives or the motivations of others. This is encapsulated in a wonderful line from Sonnet 138, When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies. For my money, the greatest Shakespearean exploration of skepticism is Othello, in which a more comes to results that are anything but utopian. Just as a refresher, the more in question is the titular character Othello, who is tricked by his supposed friend, Iago, into suspecting his beloved Desdemona of having an affair. In principle, Iago's motivation is that he thinks Othello might in fact have seduced his own wife, but it's made clear early on that this is something of an excuse. Iago says, I know not if it be true, but I, for mere suspicion in that kind, will do as if for surety. Like Shylock, Iago is driven by an all-too-human malevolence, not by reasoned beliefs based on solid evidence. His genius is to manipulate and exploit the uncertainty of others, in particular, of course, Othello. It's actually emphasized in the play that Othello is not a particularly jealous man. His weakness is rather his insecurity about whether Desdemona could really love one such as him. Thus, when Iago raises the specter of infidelity, Othello demands, Be sure thou prove my love a whore, be sure of it, give me the ocular proof, or at least so prove it, that the probation bear no hinge nor loop to hang a doubt on. And again, in the same scene, By the world, I think my wife be honest, and think she is not. I think that thou art just, and think thou art not. I'll have some proof. Notice the echo of the paradox in that line from the sonnets. Othello's desperate search for reassurance reminds me of something, the dilemma addressed by the aforementioned Richard Hooker, in his early work offering comfort to the faithful who are not sure whether they will be saved. I don't find it too far of a stretch to suppose that Othello's desire for proof of Desdemona's love is a stand-in for the Christian believer's desire to have proof of grace from a loving God. If so, then Shakespeare is in agreement with Hooker. Such desire is misplaced because love is something that calls for faith, not something to be put to the test by demanding solid evidence. But even if you do find that too far of a stretch, you can hardly doubt that Shakespeare shares a late 16th century preoccupation with that very topic, doubt. The later poet John Keats spoke of Shakespeare's negative capability, by which he meant that the bard was capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. The theme emerges in many of the plays, not least Hamlet. There, the hesitations of the main character are explained in part by his desire to get proof of his uncle Claudius's misdeeds, and the ghost of his father is distrusted by Horatio, which of course leads to the most famous reference to our favorite discipline in all of Shakespeare, and quite possibly in the English language. Telling him to have an open mind, Hamlet tells Horatio that there are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his philosophy. But a closer comparison to Othello would be King Lear, in particular its opening scene, in which Lear invites his daughters to pledge their devotion to him before distributing his inheritance. His plan is evidently to give the largest share to his one virtuous daughter, Cordelia, but she refuses to play the game, and when asked what she can say to match the effusive flattery offered by her sisters, says simply, nothing. When pressed, she describes her relationship to her father in coldly transactional terms. You have begot me, bred me, loved me. I return those duties back as our right fit, obey you, love you, and most honor you. As with Othello, Lear's tragedy is set in train by his demand for proof of affection. But here, there is an additional layer of meaning because of the political significance of the scene. This isn't just about whether a father feels loved, it's about who is going to rule after Lear is gone. By having Cordelia decline to flatter her way into power, or rather into power for her husband to be, Shakespeare marks a shift in political thinking. Though the play is actually set in deep antiquity, the character of Lear is operating within a medieval, filthy-based conception of authority, sealed with bonds of personal affection. Cordelia represents something more modern, a contractual approach to politics. As one scholar has written of the scene, once Cordelia dissolves the old bonds of faith and duty, a new moral universe must be constituted. Of course, King Lear is not the only play by Shakespeare set in the distant past. As the aforementioned A.D. Nuttall has written, antiquity served him as a perfect laboratory for free-ranging political hypothesis, set apart in time rather than in place, like Moore's Utopia. There's no better example than Julius Caesar. Despite its title, the main character of the play is in fact Brutus, who faces a Hamlet-like dilemma whether or not to kill a tyrant in an attempt to save the Roman Republic from Caesar's ambition. This sounds familiar, doesn't it? After our discussions of all those writings about tyrannicide by Huguenots and radical Protestants in Britain, we might almost have expected Shakespeare to explore the same theme, and so he does. Like Motagni's friend, Debouti, in Unvoluntary Servitude, this play makes the point that tyrants can succeed only because those they oppress allow it. After all, Caesar is just another man like other men. As Cassius says when encouraging Brutus to act, there is no cause to be in awe of such a thing as I myself. And when Brutus comes to defend his action, he does so in terms that would fit nicely into Debouti's work. Had you rather Caesar were living and die all slaves than that Caesar were dead to live all free men? This line comes in the first of the paired speeches delivered by Brutus and Mark Antony to the Roman people, who are shown being swayed Brutus's way and then Antony's once they have lent him their ears. This triggers a riot in protest at the assassination. It's less than clear from all this what Shakespeare thinks about tyrannicide. As he shows in the final acts of the play, this particular one led to a civil war, and we all know that the conspirators failed to keep the Republic alive. By contrast, it's pretty evident from Julius Caesar what Shakespeare thinks about rhetoric. It's dangerous. Actually, rhetoric students in the Renaissance were sometimes given Caesar's killing as a model and had to practice arguing for and against it. With his portrayal of Antony's emotive speech and its effects, Shakespeare demonstrates both the power and risks of rhetoric. In this light, it's interesting to note that Cicero, the pole star by whom the humanist rhetoricians steered their craft, is present in Julius Caesar mostly by being absent. He is a very minor character, whose views on the conspiracy are a matter of speculation, and who is then mentioned as a victim of Antony's purges later in the drama. Of course, there's a world of difference between writing a treatise about tyranny or about rhetoric and writing a play about them. One difference is the one just mentioned. Though we usually know what Shakespeare's characters think, we often cannot tell what he thinks. Another difference is that the philosophical issues are made personal. Here, they are focused in the person of Brutus, a thoroughly admirable character who is pronounced the noblest Roman of all by even his enemy Antony. In that passage, Antony observes that among the conspirators, only Brutus acted on principle. Cassius is a clear contrast, motivated by loathing of Caesar and thus far from the ideal dispassionate protector of the laws imagined in a work like the Huguenot treatise Vindicchiae Contra Tyrannus. Brutus is best positioned to play that role because of his upright character and also his personal admiration for Caesar as a man, something he emphasizes in his speech to the Roman people, I did love Caesar when I struck him. As several scholars have noted, there are strong clues that Brutus is meant to be a stoic. Maybe the most obvious is when Cassius says to him, of your philosophy you make no use if you give place to accidental evils. In this same scene, we're shown Brutus responding to the death of his wife Portia with a degree of self control that even Epictetus might envy. Even so, great men, great losses should endure, remarks one comrade, while Cassius sounds like Montaigne when he says in rueful admiration, I have as much of this in art as you, but yet my nature could not bear it so. But Brutus is better at remaining steadfast in the face of misfortune than he is at ignoring the call of sentiment. While Portia is still alive, we see him struggling to reconcile his love for her with his need to keep the conspiracy secret, and his affection for Caesar himself makes it hard for him to act on behalf of the Republic. More like Hamlet than like Epictetus, he says after a sleepless and fretful night, between the acting of a dreadful thing and the first motion, all the interim is like a phantasma or a hideous dream. Another scholar who has plumbed the philosophical depths of Shakespeare's plays, Patrick Gray, has written that Brutus, aims to become an exemplary stoic sage, but he fails to remain indifferent to the imminent collapse of the Roman Republic. In his concern for other people, Brutus reveals an aspect of his character which cannot be reconciled to his ambition to be seen as a philosopher, a refractory streak of kindness. As these examples show, philosophers can get plenty out of Shakespeare, which makes it a bit surprising that they unanimously failed to do so for several generations. Eventually they would come around. Hegel was a fan, and the 20th century French thinker Emmanuel Levinas commented with understandable hyperbole that, The whole of philosophy is only a meditation of Shakespeare. The first significant philosopher to engage with Shakespeare was the Earl of Shaftesbury, who in the early 18th century praised one play in particular as, Almost one continued moral, a series of deep reflections drawn from one mouth upon the subject of one single accident and calamity naturally fitted to move horror and compassion. It's a work I've already mentioned a few times in passing, but it demands our full attention, and I hope you'll all join me for that because it takes a village to discuss Hamlet. First though, I'm happy to say that someone else is joining me, the very scholar I quoted a moment ago, Patrick Gray. Maybe I'll ask him whether he knows the difference between a Frenchman and Shakespeare's Brutus. At breakfast, the Frenchman only wanted one egg, because in French one egg is un euf. As for Brutus, he ate two. That's next time here on The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps.