"This book shows Shakespeare confronting political, social, and philosophical issues: the motives of characters and ethical judgments on them; the defining features of legal systems; the problem of economic inequality; the limits and costs of power in colonial and other situations; the mind's capacity to know the world, other minds, and the supernatural"--

Introduction: The Leading Thought
Part I. Individuals
Chapter 1. Excuses, Bepissing, and Non-Being: Shakespearean Puzzles About Agency
Appendix. "Say it is my humour"
Chapter 2. Happy Hamlet
Chapter 3. Resisting Complicity: Ethical Judgment and King Lear
Part II. Systems
Chapter 4. Shakespeare and Legal Systems: The Better the Worse (but Not Vice Versa)
Chapter 5. King Lear and Human Needs
Chapter 6. The Tempest (1): Power
Chapter 7. The Tempest (2): Labor
Chapter 8. The Tempest (3): Humanism
Part III. Beliefs
Chapter 9. Shakespeare and Skepticism (1): Religion
Chapter 10. Shakespeare and Skepticism (2): Epistemology
Chapter 11. Mind, Nature, Heterodoxy, and Iconoclasm in The Winter's Tale
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments