Shaggy

Shaggy's Epistemology: It Wasn't Me!
By Newman Nahas
The West is home to a longstanding tradition of thoroughgoing epistemic
skepticism. It is also home to a longstanding tradition of thoroughgoing R&B. What
many don't realize is the degree to which the latter can complement the former. Toward
the end of correcting this widespread ignorance, in this essay I subject Shaggy's most
recent work of lyrical (and, as I shall soon show, philosophical) genius to the careful
exegetical scrutiny it so rightly deserves but of which it has been hitherto so wrongly
deprived.
In the terse yet pregnant verses of his epoch-making 'It Wasn't Me,' Shaggy takes
up many of the central questions of epistemology, particularly those raised by the
skeptics, and offers a veritable blitzkrieg on simplistic empiricism.
For those of you who may not have heard Shaggy's recent masterpiece because
you've been too busy reading Kant, I'll refrain from leveling the opprobrium upon you
that you deserve, and kindly catch you up to speed. Shaggy's friend has been caught by
his girlfriend making love to another woman. Or so it seems. In Shaggy's inimitable
eloquence, he puts the matter thus: 'Honey came in and she caught me red-handed /
Creeping with the girl next door.'1 Such them is the predicament in which Shaggy's
friend (henceforth, 'SF') has found himself. (Do not be confused: SF is none other than
Shaggy. Is Socrates any other than Plato?)
What is SF to say to his beloved girlfriend? Is SF guilty of cheating? Or perhaps
the familiar Cartesian demon is up to his old tricks again, playing with Honey’s
perceptual faculties? Shaggy argues that despite Honey having seen SF getting his
copulatory groove on in such diverse places as the counter, the sofa, and the shower, and
despite the additional corroboration of the video-camera recording, it wasn't him. He
didn't do it.
But how can he deny his culpability so confidently in the face of overwhelming
perceptual evidence to the contrary? Before we get to the substance of Shaggy's
devestating dismantling of Honey 's obsequious reliance on her perceptual faculties, we
must first note an immediately evident flaw in Honey’s case. Honey assumes that the
recordings of the video-camera constitute a second, corroborating strand of evidence
alongside her own immediate perceptions. But does not the Honey realize that the
faculties on which she relies as she looks at the TV are the selfsame faculties on which
she relied when she 'caught' SF conjugating on the sofa? Honey’s introduction of the
camera as though it were an additional, independent source of corroboration thus begs the
question against the Shaggian: What reason does the honey have in the first place for
trusting the deliverances of her perceptual faculties? And more importantly: Does she
trust these impetuous faculties, which we have all known to malfunction all too
1 Betraying his allegiance to the analytical school of philosophy, Shaggy is not content to leave things
vaguely stated, as too many philosopher these days unfortunately are, but instead turns to spelling out the
matter further, in crisp detail: 'Picture this we were both butt-naked / Banging on the bathroom floor.'

frequently, more than she trusts her beau, who has never been known to malfunction?
(Let us remember that Shaggy is not called Mr. Lover-Lover without reason.)
Shaggy's argument proceeds with increasing nuance. Showing the discursive
virtues characteristic of any great philosopher, he concedes straightaway the strongest
points of his opponent. He admits that since Honey was standing there the entire time,
and saw with her very eyes '[w]hy should she believe me [SF speaking] when I told her it
wasn't me?' Shaggy sagaciously responds, 'Make sure she knows it's not you.' Shaggy
thus recognizes that if Honey is to have the courage to stand up to her perceptual
faculties, which speak with a seemingly irrefragable voice, she is going to need reasons
strong enough to confer knowledge in nothing less than the true Cartesian sense.
But what could confer such indubitable certitude that can trump even the
deliverances of one's perceptual faculties? It is only fitting to let Shaggy speak for
himself at this pivotal moment: ‘[W]henever you should see her / [you should] make da
gigolo flex.’ Ah, the gigolo flex. By showcasing a playa’s robust muscles and flavorful
masculinity, the gigolo flex — long forgotten by modern philosophers, with their gnostic
dualism and disdain for the physical — is a clarion call to epistmic sobriety.
Shaggy realizes that some might greet his trail-blazing hypothesis with
incredulity, and preempts such half-baked criticism: 'As funny as it be by you, it not that
complex.' Here, Shaggy taunts the highbrow philosopher, with her obsessive need for
analysis. Instead of invoking gratuitously complicated theories, with their ponderous
distinctions and exotic thought experiments, Shaggy distills warranted belief to
something surprisingly, indeed, deliciously, simple: the gigolo flex. Shaggy knows when
to stop digging because a foundation has been reached.
One might be tempted to fault Shaggy for his apparent inconsistency in faulting
the Honey for her reliance on perception, yet expecting her to accept the evidential value
of the gigolo flex, which presumably she can only access via perception. But one would
be wrong. The gigolo flex is not something one sees or perceives, but rather it is
something one experiences via a faculty distinct from and even more basic than
perception: the gigolo-flex-recognizing-faculty (‘GFRF’). Indeed, because the
deliverances of the GFRF, like the Cogito, are self-authenticating, they stand ready to
correct the other senses (which, as we all know, are fallible). As Shaggy explains,
although 'Seein is believin,' upon experiencing the gigolo flex Honey 'better change her
specs'.
The critical question to the honey thus becomes: 'Sure, your perceptual faculties
tell you that I was fornicating with the girl next door — but what does your GFRF tell
you?' Or put another way, ‘When I undertake to flex in the gigolo way, what happens to
your ‘perceptions’? Do they not fade away, stripped of their illusory authority, like a
mirage to which you have drawn near?’
Of course, while ascribing infallibility to the gigolo flex as a ground of
knowledge, Shaggy humbly declines to ascribe dialectical irresistibility to it. He realizes
that Honey may, owing to obdurateness or obtuseness, refuse to heed the deliverances of

the GFRF. For this reason, Shaggy adds the important caveat: 'go over there but if she
pack a gun / You know you better run fast.' Shaggy’s pragmatism allows him to think
outside of the constraints of his preferred theoretical framework, and to warn that if
Honey persists in trusting her perception over her GFRF — and resorts to violence as a
result of her rabid empiricism — then the only thing to do is to run.
In conclusion, Shaggy's masterpiece, 'It Wasn't Me', is as much a philosophical
tour de force as it is a lyrical one. In showing the absurdity of slavishly trusting one's
perceptual faculties, Shaggy challenges much of traditional western epistemology, and
calls into question the rationality of the many honeys out there that might claim to find
their beaus creeping with other women: On what basis do all you honeys trust your
perceptual faculties over your GFRG?
Perhaps as concerns infidelity, then, Shaggy was right to say 'I didn't do it'. But as
concerns groundbreaking epistemological discoveries no such Shaggian self-deprecation
can be allowed. Shaggy: You did do it.
Bombastic.