scholarly journals THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE: PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE FICTION IN CLAIRE NORTH'S NOVEL "THE FIRST FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUST"

2018 ◽  
pp. 5-9
Author(s):  
M. Fedosova
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Personal Time ◽  
The Future ◽  
Meaningful Existence ◽  
Science In Society ◽  
Theoretical Science

As developed in this paper, science fiction shows us the distorted vision of the present with its anxieties about (mis)use of science although it deals mostly with the future and alternative realities. Thus SF stories both praise scientific progress and repulse its terrible applications caused by irresponsible abuse of technology. This paper focuses on how contemporary SF deals with philosophical issues of life, death, technology, and the role of science in society. It reviews Claire North's novel "The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August" in which SF conventions parallel and intensify the thriller narrative. The philosophies of Nietzsche and Heidegger have been employed to discuss the theory of eternal return and related topics of nihilism, devaluation of values, and purpose of existence. It is stated that the novel reveals how cognition of totality may lead to death and illustrates that human beings are incapable of achieving omniscience. Personal time is measured by memory and is always linear; therefore it can guarantee meaningful existence only when its arrow points towards growth and maturity. It is shown that ethical issues raised in the novel are based on the distinction between theoretical science signifying truth and its practical application meaning power. Knowledge by itself lies beyond morality; however, means used in its pursuit entail responsibility to others.

scholarly journals Ethics and psychiatric genetics: is it ethical to test for ‘depression genes’?

2004 ◽  
Vol 28 (8) ◽  
pp. 279-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Genetic Research ◽  
Psychiatric Genetics ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Modifying Genes ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Future

Only one fact is certain about the future of genetic research: it will continue to raise ethical challenges for scientists, research participants, clinicians and patients (Faraone et al, 1999). Ethical issues are of concern in all branches of medicine and genetics, but they are of particular concern in the field of psychiatric genetics. This is because of the special nature of psychiatry, and its position at the intersection of the disciplines of psychology, sociology and medicine. The concern is also related to the perceived subject matter of psychiatry: the core thoughts, feelings and emotions by which we define ourselves as human beings. Many are perturbed by the idea that modifying genes could modify these features. By ‘interfering’ with our genetic heritage, it is perceived that our essential humanity is coming under threat, and the possible outcomes of this interference are worryingly unknown.

scholarly journals Transmodern Reconfigurations of Territoriality, Defense, and Cultural Awareness in Ken MacLeod’s Cosmonaut Keep

Societies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Aliaga-Lavrijsen
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Cultural Awareness ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Dark Light ◽  
Solar Systems ◽  
Technological Processes ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Outcomes

This paper focuses on the science fiction (SF) novel Cosmonaut Keep (2000)—first in the trilogy Engines of Light, which also includes Dark Light (2001) and Engines of Light (2002)—by the Scottish writer Ken MacLeod, and analyzes from a transmodern perspective some future warfare aspects related to forthcoming technological development, possible reconfigurations of territoriality in an expanding cluster of civilizations travelling and trading across distant solar systems, expanded cultural awareness, and space ecoconsciousness. It is my argument that MacLeod’s novel brings Transmodernism, which is characterized by a “planetary vision” in which human beings sense that we are interdependent, vulnerable, and responsible, into the future. Hereby, MacLeod’s work expands the original conceptualization of the term “Transmodernism” as defined by Rodríguez Magda, and explores possible future outcomes, showing a unique awareness of the fact that technological processes are always linked to political and power-related uses.

scholarly journals Recursos genéricos de la novela de ciencia ficción de Pedro Salinas

2011 ◽  
pp. 531
Author(s):  
Fernando Angel Moreno Serrano
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Spanish Literature ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Main Subject ◽  
The Future ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Poetic Visions ◽  
Pedro Salinas

Un análisis sobre La bomba increíble, de Pedro Salinas, es interesante porque nos permite disfrutarla desde diferentes líneas. En primer lugar, no ha sido estudiada como el resto de sus textos literarios, aunque los valores de esta pequeña obra maestra merezcan una especial atención que no ha tenido. Por otra parte, es uno de los extraños casos de novela de ciencia ficción escrita por un autor canónico español. Por último, es sorprendente cómo el poeta mostró todas sus obsesiones, miedos y visiones poéticas con una novela con el futuro como tema. Un análisis de los mecanismos de construcción empleados por Salinas –especialmente ficcionales, pero también lingüísticos y simbólicos– nos permitirá entender y, por consiguiente, disfrutar mejor la novela, así como ponerla en el lugar que le corresponde.An analysis about Pedro Salinas’ La bomba increíble: una fabulación is interesting because we can enjoy it from different points of view. In the first place, it has not been studied as the rest of his literary texts, although the values of this little masterpiece deserve a special attention that has not taken place. On the other hand, it is a strange case of the science fiction novels in Spanish literature written by a Spanish canonic author. Finally, it is amazing how the poet showed all his obsessions, fears and poetic visions with a novel with the future as its main subject. An analysis of the mechanisms of construction used by Salinas –specially the fictional ones, but also the linguistic and symbolic ones– will allow us to understand the novel and consequently enjoy it more. Thus we will be able to put it in the place where it should be.

scholarly journals Fare gli italiani dell’anno 3000

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Campani
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Romantic Love ◽  
Italian Society ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
And Gender

In 1897 the Italian anthropologist Paolo Mantegazza published The year 3000. A dream, a science fiction novel in which he described the future order of mankind through the journey of a couple. While recent historiography has focused on the eugenic elements of the book, this article discusses the social and gender matters that underpin the novel. Indeed, on the basis of the emotional paradigm of romantic love, Mantegazza put the ‘sexual reform’ of the post-unified Italy at the centre of his work. Believing that «love was the first instrument of progress», he aimed to show how under the guidance of science, humanity as well as Italian society would have a future of happiness and prosperity.

scholarly journals Kartezjusz — Lyotard — Dukaj. „Perfekcyjna niedoskonałość” jako propozycja oświecenia po uznaniu końca paradygmatu wielkich narracji

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 169-178
Author(s):  
Gerard Ronge
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Human Being ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Fictional World ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Future ◽  
Canonical Texts

The paper explores the philosophical statements emerging from the plot of Jacek Dukaj’s science-fiction novel Perfekcyjna niedoskonałość [The Perfect Imperfection]. The argument of the article states that the Polish novel proposes a complete philosophical model of possible ways of imagining the future which is unique, yet fully coherent with the Enlightenment paradigm. After recapitulating the most important arguments of the mid-century’s discussion about the end of the grand narratives and brief recall of most canonical texts of the period of the Enlightenment, the author analyses ontological presuppositions hidden after the structure of the fictional world created by Dukaj. The novel appears to fully acknowledge the Cartesian dualistic model of the human being (which strongly separates its biological and mental roots) and sets plots in times when all biological limitations have been transgressed. Despite that, both optimistic scenarios of eighteenth-century utopians and catastrophic visions of twentieth-century sci-fi authors have never been fulfilled and the fictional world of the twenty-ninth century appears to be just the same as ours in its core, despite being totally different in terms of its phenomenological appearance.

scholarly journals The Last Day and Brexit: Delusions of Future Past

Porównania ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 167-177
Author(s):  
Justyna Jajszczok
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Ideological Background

The paper aims to show how the traditions of science fiction and, above all, invasion literature provide the ideological background for reading Andrew Hunter Murray’s The Last Day as a novel about Brexit. As it draws on anxious visions of the future, in which the enemy lurks around every corner, and the only salvation is complete isolation from the world, Murray’s work is read here as a Brexit dream come true, in which Britain is once again great, independent and uncontaminated by foreign elements. By evoking the myths that focus only on glory and conveniently “forget” the dark sides of the empire, the novel demonstrates that the fantasies of the past are as distant as the fantasies of the future; the loss of the world that never was is reworked in The Last Day into the loss of ecologically viable planet.

scholarly journals Futurismo arcaizante: descolonización y anarcofeminismo en De cuando en cuando Saturnina

2011 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 115-133
Author(s):  
Hannah A. Burdette
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Oral History ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Feminist Science ◽  
Back Cover ◽  
Feminist Science Fiction ◽  
Gender Hierarchy ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of

Drawing on the description of De cuando en cuando Saturnina by Alison Spedding as “native anarco–feminist science fiction” announced on the back cover of its first edition (2004), this article proposes an interconnected reading of these four axes (futurism, Aymara logic, anarchism, and feminism). I argue that the structure of this “oral history of the future” conveys  a critical resolve to avoid positing the reinstatement of Qullasuyu as the utopic horizon of an idyllic society, while the text as a whole remains  committed to a radical decolonization of Bolivia anchored in an autonomous cultural grammar. In this sense, the novel offers a critical vision not only of the coloniality that Aymara culture has endured but also of certain challenges internal to Aymara society itself, particularly in regards to gender hierarchy. Partiendo de la descripción de la novela De cuando en cuando Saturnina  (Alison Spedding, 2004) como “ciencia ficción originaria anarco–feminista” declarada  en  la  contratapa  de  la  primera  edición,  el  presente trabajo propone una lectura entrecruzada de estos cuatro ejes (futurismo, lógica aymara, anarquismo y feminismo). Leo en la estructura de la “historia oral del futuro” una voluntad crítica que rehúye cualquier tentación de ver la reinstauración de Qullasuyu  como  horizonte utópico de una sociedad idílica, pero que al mismo tiempo apuesta a una descolonización radical de Bolivia anclada  en  una   gramática   cultural   autónoma  y  propia.  Así,  la  novela despliega una visión crítica no sólo de la colonialidad a la que ha estado sometida la cultura aymara  sino  también  de  ésta misma y de sus desafíos internos, particularmente en relación a jerarquías de género.

scholarly journals Rousseau in a Post-Apocalyptic Context: Angela Carter’s Heroes and Villains and Science Fiction

Humanities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 142
Author(s):  
Yutaka Okuhata
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Fiction Writers ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

The present paper discusses Angela Carter’s Heroes and Villains (1969), which parodies both “post-apocalyptic” novels in the Cold War era and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s theory on civilisation. By analysing this novel in comparison, not only to Rousseau’s On the Origin of Inequality (1755), but also to the works of various science fiction writers in the 1950s and 1960s, the paper aims to examine Carter’s reinterpretation of Rousseau in a post-apocalyptic context. As I will argue, Heroes and Villains criticises Rousseau from a feminist point of view to not only represent the dystopian society as full of inequality and violence, but also to show that human beings, having forgotten the nuclear war as their great “sin” in the past, can no longer create a bright future. Observing the underlying motifs in the novel, the paper will reveal how Carter attempts to portray a world where human history has totally ended, or where people cannot make “history” in spite of the fact that they biologically survived the holocaust. From this perspective, I will clarify the way in which Carter reinterprets Rousseau’s notion of “fallen” civilisation in the new context as a critique of the nuclear issues in the late twentieth century.

scholarly journals Evaluating the Posthuman Future – Some Philosophical Problems

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-139
Author(s):  
Søren Holm
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Future Scenario ◽  
Good Future ◽  
The Future

Imagining a future scenario where human beings have evolved in ways so that they are no longer human but post- or transhuman has been a recurrent trope in science fiction literature since the very inception of the genre. More recently, the possibility of a future including posthumans has received significant philosophical attention due to the emergence of activist ‘transhumanism’. This paper will analyse some of the philosophical problems in evaluating whether a posthuman future is a good future that we ought to pursue. It will first briefly describe the transhumanist conception of the posthuman, and the different routes envisaged from the current human condition to the future posthuman condition. The second part will then present and analyse some fundamental philosophical problems we encounter when we try to assess whether and to what extent the posthuman future is good and/or desirable; and it will be concluded that assessing the ethical desirability of the posthuman future is close to impossible.

scholarly journals Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake as a Critique of Technological Utopianism

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-50
Author(s):  
Murat Kabak
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Margaret Atwood ◽  
Contemporary Fiction ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Scientific Objectivity ◽  
Oryx And Crake ◽  
Utopian Thought

While there are major works tracing the themes of belonging and longing for home in contemporary fiction, there is no current study adequately addressing the connection between dystopian novel and nostalgia. This paper aims to illustrate how the Canadian writer Margaret Atwood uses nostalgia as a framework to level a critique against technological utopianism in her dystopian novel Oryx and Crake (2003). The first novel in Atwood’s “MaddAddam Trilogy” problematizes utopian thought by focusing on the tension between two utopian projects: the elimination of all suffering and the perfection of human beings by discarding their weaknesses. Despite the claims of scientific objectivity and environmentalism, the novel exposes the religious and human-centered origins of Crake’s technological utopian project. Atwood’s Oryx and Crake is an ambiguous work of science fiction that combines utopian and dystopian elements into its narrative to criticize utopian thought.

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