Foucault and Shakespeare’s pedants, dotards and drunks

Abstract

Foucault’s claim that the Renaissance organised knowledge in terms of the episteme of resemblance can be challenged in principle and on empirical grounds. I argue that the empirical challenge can be delivered, first, by pointing to three Shakespeare scenes in which the use of analogy as a means of presenting knowledge is repudiated; and, second, by pointing to alternative ways of organising knowledge: classical authority, logic and rhetoric. The “theoretical” challenge must be delivered by questioning Foucault’s presuppositions.