ABSTRACT
This chapter revisits a view mentioned earlier, and often found in the critical literature, to the effect that Othello is in some sense vindicated by the tragedy, and Iago defeated. Insofar as it depends upon idealizing Othello’s epistemic innocence, the view is implausible: it is always a mistake to treat the wrong things as hinge propositions. But, picking up a point from Chapter 2, it is conceded that there is a sense in which Iago is defeated: he is transcendentally defeated, inasmuch as he has the whole institution of speech against him, and in the end is reduced to silence, metaphysically and literally.
