Hamlet is an individue problématique, who has fought his way through the Exchange Value under the rubric of the dominant ideology of Realism to experience Substantial Value current in the emergent Nominalism. In this light, his nihilism and madness, although feigned, are more than natural. More roughly generalizing, the radical shift of episteme was instigated by William of Ockham's Summa of Logic in the 14th century. Montaigne's essays in ‘domestic style’, obviously influenced by Nominalism, have wielded a fruitful impact on the creation of Shakespeare's oeuvre. Shakespeare's insights into the topography of human psychology were thus greatly indebted to Montaigne's keen understanding of human ethos based on modern individualism, which has arguably reached an apex in Kierkegaardian concept of the Existentialist Self.
The analysis of Hamlet based on Existentialist individualism testifies to the dramatist's keen acumen into the depth recess of human psychology, which was philosophically emulated by such British Enlightenment thinkers as Hobbes, Locke and Hume in their analysis of human perception. Shakespeare's effort to delve into the untrodden realm of human consciousness is textually substantiated in a dramatic sequence of Hamlet's conversation with his Mother Queen, where he condemns her infidelity. Beneath the dialogue between them lies the conflict between Realism and Nominalism thereby affecting the relationship between appearance and reality in destructive terms, which ultimately vicitmizes Hamlet as skeptic lacking the courage to execute his justifiable plan. The stage of Hamlet is thus inundated with a deluge of dialogues and metaphors disclosing the rift between language and referent
To summarize, Aristotelian ontology was challenged and revised by William of Ockham, whose ontological dogmas were later inherited and aesthetically substantiated by Montaigne and Shakespeare. A variety of aesthetic and cultural texts flourished in its wake and finally sped up the process of Western Enlightenment. Herein lies Shakespeare's greatness by virtue of its historical role as an epoch- making bridge between Realism and Nominalism, which is traceable in Hamlet.