The model of the theater at Descartes

Descartes did not write about theater as an art, but he often referred to the theater as a paradigm of a possible relationship between men and their passions. Being a spectator enables us to attend events that are representations and to fictitiously take part in them without having to suffer the usual effects created by passion when plainly lived as opposed to when merely acted out or represented. Theater has no metaphysical meaning, it is not the symbol or the image of the world but only serves as model or example of a relationship to passions that can be intense, sometimes even more so than in real life, but in keeping the distance inherent to attending a performance, it preserves the inside of the soul, that is, its liberty. Theater (as well as reading novels) exemplifies the essential possibility in the cartesian moral to convert passions into internal emotions, without resorting to rules or to a discipline, but simply by adopting the standpoint of a spectator. Therefore, seeing passions represented on a stage shows how everybody is able to play with his passions, to establish a strategic relationship with oneself, with no emotional reduction or repression and without a part of the soul having to bear the burden of dominating the rest of it. Although Descartes' philosophy does not say much about theater as a specific activity, the presence of theater (and other games or fictions) within human activities can illustrate how the cartesian subject extends to the realm of passion the relation of representation that characterizes the relation between mind and ideas, including the idea of itself. The subject can feel the pleasure of experiencing his passions as if he were at the theater, yet he doesn't put on a show.