Weak Compactness and Variational Characterization of the Convexity

We prove that if X is a Banach space and ${f : X \rightarrow \mathbb{R} \cup \{+\infty\}}$ is a proper function such that f ? ? attains its minimum for every ? ε X ^*, then the sublevels of f are all relatively weakly compact in X. As a consequence we show that a Banach space X where there exists a function ${f : X \rightarrow \mathbb{R}}$ such that f ? ? attains its minimum for every ? ε X ^* is reflexive. We also prove that if ${f : X \rightarrow \mathbb{R} \cup \{+\infty\}}$ is a weakly lower semicontinuous function on the Banach space X and if for every continuous linear functional ? on X the set where the function f ? ? attains its minimum is convex and non-empty then f is convex.