The authorial delusion: counting lady Macbeth’s children

In 1933, literary critic L. C. Knights published a caustic essay against the notion cultivated by certain of his colleagues, predominantly A. C. Bradley, that Shakespeare is a ‘great creator of characters’. Knights (1973) regarded the examination of isolated particles such as ‘character’ as disorientating, alleging that an analysis of this sort obscures the greater merit of language. Knight’s polemic essentially stands in the threshold of the dissention between formalists and realists: the former consider the examination of the fictional narrative as anything but a textual construct a scholarly faux pas; the latter regard the referential relationship between text and the world as a foundation for the creation of fiction. This is a pseudo-dilemma. The notion that literature is denuded of its artistic merit once it is defined by its constituent artefacts is disorienting, for it completely bypasses the dynamics of its creation. Put differently, a post-event analysis can exist as a standalone act, albeit it cannot challenge or dismiss the foundational principles of the event’s creation process

The choice of efficiencies and the necessity of politics

Efficiency requires legislative political institutions. There are many ways efficiency can be promoted, and so an ongoing legislative institution is necessary to resolve this choice in a politically sustainable and economically flexible way. This poses serious problems for classical liberal proposals to constitutionally protect markets from government intervention, as seen in the work of Ilya Somin, Guido Pincione & Fernando Tesón and others. The argument for the political nature of efficiency is set out in terms of both Pareto optimality and aggregate welfare maximisation, and similar arguments can be generalised to other social values

The Availability Heuristic, Intuitive Cost-Benefit Analysis, and Climate Change

Because risks are on all sides of social situations, it is not possible to be “precautionary” in general. The availability heuristic ensures that some risks stand out as particularly salient, whatever their actual magnitude. Taken together with intuitive cost-benefit balancing, the availability heuristic helps to explain differences across groups, cultures, and even nations in the assessment of precautions to reduce the risks associated with climate change. There are complex links among availability, social processes for the spreading of information, and predispositions. If the United States is to take a stronger stand against climate change, it is likely to be a result of available incidents that seem to show that climate change produces serious and tangible harm

Interacting with Fictions:The Role of Pretend Play in Theory of Mind Acquisition

Pretend play is generally considered to be a developmental landmark in Theory of Mind acquisition. The aim of the present paper is to offer a new account of the role of pretend play in Theory of Mind development. To this end I combine Hutto and Gallagher’s account of social cognition development with Matravers’ recent argument that the cognitive processes involved in engagement with narratives are neutral regarding fictionality. The key contribution of my account is an analysis of pretend play as interaction with fictions. I argue that my account offers a better explanation of existing empirical data on the development of children’s pretend play and Theory of Mind than the competing theories from Leslie, Perner and Harris

Last Men Standing: Chlamydatus Portraits and Public Life in Late Antique Corinth

Notable among the marble sculptures excavated at Corinth are seven portraits of men wearing the long chlamys of Late Antique imperial office. This unusual costume, contemporary portrait heads, and inscribed statue bases all help confirm that new public statuary was created and erected at Corinth during the 4th and 5th centuries. These chlamydatus portraits, published together here for the first time, are likely to represent the Governor of Achaia in his capital city, in the company of local benefactors. Among the last works of the ancient sculptural tradition, they form a valuable source of information on public life in Late Antique Corinth