Abstract
Arguments on the adaptive function of literature and the other arts have occupied more of the shared attention of evolutionary psychologists and evolutionary literary scholars than any other topic. The amount of attention theorists have devoted to this issue signals that it is both crucially important and heavily disputed. By providing empirical evidence that bears on this issue, we hope to advance the argument in ways that can reduce the range of reasonable disputation. Before turning to our specific arguments on the adaptive function of agonistic structure in these particular novels, we summarize the current state of the discussion on this larger issue.
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© 2012 Joseph Carroll, Jonathan Gottschall, John A. Johnson, and Daniel J. Kruger
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Carroll, J., Gottschall, J., Johnson, J.A., Kruger, D.J. (2012). Adaptive Function. In: Graphing Jane Austen. Cognitive Studies in Literature and Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137002419_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137002419_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-43377-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-00241-9
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