TheCartesian theater is a term coined by philosopher and cognitive scientistDaniel Dennett to critique a persistent flaw in theories of mind, introduced in his 1991 bookConsciousness Explained.
It mockingly describes the idea of consciousness as a centralized "stage" in the brain where perceptions are presented to an internal observer. Dennett ties this toCartesian materialism, which he considers to be the often unacknowledged residue of René Descartes’dualism in modernmaterialist views. This model implies aninfinite regress, as each observer would require another to perceive it, a problem Dennett argues misrepresents how consciousness actually emerges.
The phrase echoes earlier skepticism from Dennett’s teacher,Gilbert Ryle, who inThe Concept of Mind (1949) similarly derided Cartesian dualism’s depiction of the mind as a "private theater" or "second theater."[1]
Vancouver-basedindependent software vendor Cartesian Theatre drew its corporate name from Dennett's concept to emphasize the often neglected contributions of philosophy of mind to the field of artificial intelligence.[2]
Descartes originally claimed thatconsciousness requires an immaterial soul, which interacts with the body via thepineal gland of the brain.[3] Dennett says that, when the dualism is removed, what remains of Descartes' original model amounts to imagining a tiny theater in the brain where ahomunculus (small person), now physical, performs the task of observing all the sensory data projected on a screen at a particular instant, making the decisions and sending out commands (seeHomunculus argument).[4]
The term "Cartesian theater" was brought up in the context of themultiple drafts model that Dennett posits inConsciousness Explained (1991):
Cartesian materialism is the view that there is a crucial finish line or boundary somewhere in the brain, marking a place where the order of arrival equals the order of "presentation" in experience becausewhat happens there is what you are conscious of. ... Many theorists would insist that they have explicitly rejected such an obviously bad idea. But ... the persuasive imagery of the Cartesian Theater keeps coming back to haunt us—laypeople and scientists alike—even after its ghostly dualism has been denounced and exorcized.[5]
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