scholarly journals I Am that I Am: Subjectivity and World View in the Science Fictions of Philip K. Dick

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Bradley Rose
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
World View ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Rudolf Steiner ◽  
American Science ◽  
New Beginning ◽  
The World ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
Epistemological Basis ◽  
Fiction Writer

<p>In this account of American science fiction writer Philip K. Dick's work, the aim has been to describe the involvement of assumptions inherited from philosophical and scientific discourse in both the understanding and experience of subjectivity. It is argued that Dick's representations of identity both picture the tensions engendered by the prevalent reality standard with which he had to deal and, in their development, come to articulate a path beyond the impasse this standard presents. The fundamental insufficiency of the world view Dick's fiction both encounters and embodies is epitomised by the twin questions with which he characterised his work: 'what is human?' and 'what is real?' In coming to terms with the significance of these questions the work of the Austrian philosopher and scientist Rudolf Steiner has been engaged as a critical foil to Dick's fictionalising. Special attention is given to the epistemological basis of Steiner's anthroposophy and its account of the world and our peculiar situation in it that, far from asserting any external and unvarying standard of truth, describes a process essentially evolutionary and unfixed. It is claimed that in Steiner, as in Dick, the human contribution to both identity and reality constitutes the validity of each, a matrix of subject and object from which one's self is delivered, in each instance a new beginning.</p>

scholarly journals I Am that I Am: Subjectivity and World View in the Science Fictions of Philip K. Dick

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Bradley Rose
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
World View ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Rudolf Steiner ◽  
American Science ◽  
New Beginning ◽  
The World ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
Epistemological Basis ◽  
Fiction Writer

<p>In this account of American science fiction writer Philip K. Dick's work, the aim has been to describe the involvement of assumptions inherited from philosophical and scientific discourse in both the understanding and experience of subjectivity. It is argued that Dick's representations of identity both picture the tensions engendered by the prevalent reality standard with which he had to deal and, in their development, come to articulate a path beyond the impasse this standard presents. The fundamental insufficiency of the world view Dick's fiction both encounters and embodies is epitomised by the twin questions with which he characterised his work: 'what is human?' and 'what is real?' In coming to terms with the significance of these questions the work of the Austrian philosopher and scientist Rudolf Steiner has been engaged as a critical foil to Dick's fictionalising. Special attention is given to the epistemological basis of Steiner's anthroposophy and its account of the world and our peculiar situation in it that, far from asserting any external and unvarying standard of truth, describes a process essentially evolutionary and unfixed. It is claimed that in Steiner, as in Dick, the human contribution to both identity and reality constitutes the validity of each, a matrix of subject and object from which one's self is delivered, in each instance a new beginning.</p>

The Notion of Power and Liberalism Evolution

2021 ◽  
Vol 35.5 ◽  
pp. 62-82
Author(s):  
Oleg A. Matveychev
Keyword(s):  
Power Analysis ◽  
World View ◽  
Power Structure ◽  
Human History ◽  
History Data ◽  
Legal Violence ◽  
New Beginning ◽  
The World ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
Classless Society

The author of the article makes the attempt to explain the evolution of liberalism and even broader, of human history not through the evolution of the notion of freedom, that became the philosophic mainstream already at the time of Hegel and was convenient for liberalism itself, but on the basis of the notion of power analysis that is interpreted by the liberals as opposite to freedom. Proceeding from the linguistic and political history data, the author demonstrates the multi-components character of the notion of power that is interpreted as: 1) some intriguing and “charming” authority ensuring harmony and order; 2) the source of legal violence; 3) the promise of advantages that leads to voluntary assuming certain responsibilities; 4) dependence on the source of want satisfaction; 5) passion, irrational dependence. The present notion of power structure is coherent to the Varna system specific for Indo-European nations; each Varna has its own, specific only for it, understanding of power. In various epochs and in various societies we find a specific governing notion of power. So, in Russia since ancient times the worldview of Kshatriyas prevailed and it still determines to a large extent its civilizational specifics. The classic western liberalism was characterized by the Vaishyas ideology dominance, i.e. the bourgeois class; on the contrary modern liberalism, libertarianism share the world view of the “classless society” of the Dalits (“gone astray”), whose dominance deprives the world of controllability and destructs all vertical hierarchy. The way out of the universal crisis is possible only on the basis of new historical grounds that will become, according to Heidegger, “the new beginning of history”.

Terraforming: Engineering Imaginary Environments

Terraforming ◽  
2016 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Chris Pak
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Nature Of Science ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Gaia Hypothesis ◽  
Fictional Narratives ◽  
Human Value ◽  
Environmental Engagement ◽  
Fiction Writer

Beginning with the coining of “terraforming” by science fiction writer Jack Williamson, this chapter explores the boundaries of the term in scientific discourse and in fiction, focusing attention on its significance for stories of interplanetary colonisation. It compares terraforming with its Earthbound counterpart, geoengineering, thus highlighting how science fiction explores modes of relating to Earth’s environment. It introduces James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis and explains its significance for terraforming, and explores the nature of science fiction’s environmental engagement and its intersections with ecocritical concerns. It also introduces the concept of nature’s otherness and of landscaping, and connects the latter to Bakhtin’s chronotope, thus delineating an analytical framework for exploring how space and time is invested with human value and meaning in science fictional narratives.

scholarly journals White Womanhood and/as American Empire in Arrival and Annihilation

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 130
Author(s):  
Meghan Johnston Aelabouni
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Human Migration ◽  
American Empire ◽  
Hybrid Identities ◽  
American Science ◽  
The World ◽  
Theories Of Religion ◽  
Parallel Construction ◽  
White Womanhood

American science fiction stories, such as U.S. historical narratives, often give central place to white, Western male subjects as noble explorers, benevolent colonizers, and border-guarding patriots. This constructed subjectivity renders colonized or cultural others as potentially threatening aliens, and it works alongside the parallel construction of white womanhood as a signifier for the territory to be possessed and protected by American empire—or as a sign of empire itself. Popular cultural narratives, whether in the world of U.S. imperialism or the speculative worlds of science fiction, may serve a religious function by helping to shape world-making: the envisioning and enacting of imagined communities. This paper argues that the world-making of American science fiction can participate in the construction and maintenance of American empire; yet, such speculative world-making may also subvert and critique imperialist ideologies. Analyzing the recent films Arrival (2016) and Annihilation (2018) through the lenses of postcolonial and feminist critique and theories of religion and popular culture, I argue that these films function as parables about human migration, diversity, and hybrid identities with ambiguous implications. Contact with the alien other can be read as bringing threat, loss, and tragedy or promise, birth, and possibility.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael R. Page
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
The World ◽  
Mere Presence ◽  
To Come ◽  
First Time ◽  
Fiction Writer

This conclusion reflects on Frederik Pohl's legacy as a science fiction writer, editor, agent, and fan. Pohl died on September 2, 2013, leaving a chasm in the world of science fiction. Among those who paid tribute were Joe Haldeman, James Gunn, Mack Hassler, and Christopher McKitterick. But Pohl's legacy continues and will continue for many decades to come: through the readers who discover his work for the first time on a library shelf or paperback rack; through the writers who are influenced by his writing, his editing, his advice, and his mere presence in the field; and through the scholars who will find in Pohl an astute critic of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and an advocate for future alternatives to the roads humanity now travels. Pohl lived a life in science fiction, building and shaping it for over three-quarters of a century.

All Today’s Parties

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Westfahl
Keyword(s):  
Pattern Recognition ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
William Gibson ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Fiction Writer

This chapter examines three William Gibson novels: Pattern Recognition, Spook Country, and Zero History. Gibson had planned Pattern Recognition for a long time: in 1986, he declared that he would “eventually try something else,” and “in twenty years” he would probably be “writing about human relationships.” By shifting from the future to the present, Gibson clearly felt that he was relaunching his career, and hence he logically reverted to the pattern of his first novel. Known as a science fiction writer for decades, Gibson felt an obvious need to justify Pattern Recognition's present-day setting. This chapter considers a number of ways to argue that Pattern Recognition should be classified as science fiction. Spook Country asserts that we live today in a world filled with science-fictional events, but we are unable or unwilling to properly observe them. Zero History suggests that Gibson has entirely distanced himself from the world of computers, the focus of the cyberpunk literature he was once said to represent.

scholarly journals A Post-Colonial Approach to The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 53
Author(s):  
Zhehui Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Chinese American ◽  
World Peace ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
American Science ◽  
Fiction Writer

The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary is a science fiction by Chinese American science fiction writer Ken Liu (1976-). Based on the theory of Post-Colonial Criticism, this paper makes a concrete analysis of the text from the perspectives of three eminent contemporary theorists, aiming at the readers&rsquo; better understanding of the work, and eliminating ethnocentrism, racism, unilateralism and hegemony; keeping history in mind and justifying the names of innocent humans who have been persecuted; safeguarding world peace, and building a community with a shared future for mankind.

scholarly journals THE The Reflective-Accommodative Approach to the Quran: Ahmad Syafii Maarif’s Contribution towards Contemporary Approach to the Quran`

ULUMUNA ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 199-227
Author(s):  
Muhammad K Ridwan
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Ethical Values ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
Principle Of Justice ◽  
Moral Ethics ◽  
Contemporary Reality ◽  
Alternative Solutions ◽  
Epistemological Basis

This paper aims to examine Ahmad Syafii Maarif’s inclusive thought and reveal the epistemological basis of interpreting the Qur’an. It further explores to what extent Maarif’s thought has contributed to the development of contemporary Quranic studies. Although Maarif is not an expert of Quranic commentator (mufassir) and does not author works related to the Qur’an, he is well-known as an inclusive-pluralist Muslim scholar who is concerned with promoting the moral-ethical values of the Qur’an. In formulating the ideas of the Quranic epistemology, Maarif consistently embarks from an in-depth exploration of historical knowledge and then refers to the Qur’an to examine a contemporary reality. This approach was connected by forming the world-view of the Qur’an in order to propose the spirit of moral ethics and the principle of justice as a theological lens which he then use to generate creative-alternative solutions dealing with the nation’s problems through a process of contextualization. Maarif’s Quranic epistemology affirms his project to achieve an idealistic Islam, namely the realization of a Muslim community that is consistently guided by the spirit of the moral ethics of the Qur’an.

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