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The philosophy of science fiction : Henri Bergson and the fabulations of Philip K. Dick / James Burton.
Van Pelt Library PN3433.6 .B87 2015
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Burton, James (James Edward)
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Dick, Philip K.
- Bergson, Henri, 1859-1941.
- Science fiction--Philosophy.
- Science fiction.
- Bergson, Henri, 1859-1941--Criticism and interpretation.
- Bergson, Henri.
- Dick, Philip K--Criticism and interpretation.
- Criticism and interpretation.
- Genre:
- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
- Physical Description:
- viii, 233 pages ; cm
- Place of Publication:
- London : Bloomsbury, 2015.
- Summary:
- The Philosophy of Science Fiction: Henri Bergson and the Fabulations of Philip K. Dick explores the deep affinity between two seemingly quite different thinkers in their attempts to address the need for salvation in (and from) an era of accelerated mechanization, in which humans' capacity for destroying or subjugating the living has attained a planetary scale. Book jacket.
- Contents:
- Philosophy and science fiction 3
- Bergson and Dick at the edge of the known 11
- The ethics of balking 17
- Philip K. Dick studies 21
- Note on terminology 26
- 1 Fabulation: Counteracting Reality 29
- Mechanization and the war-instinct 30
- The biological origins of society 35
- Countering the intellect 38
- The morality of violence 43
- Open morality and the misdirection of mechanism 46
- True mysticism: Immanent salvation 50
- An incomplete soteriology 53
- Fabulation for the open 57
- Conclusion 59
- 2 Fabulating Salvation in Four Early Novels 61
- Solar Lottery (1972 [1955]) 63
- The World Jones Made (1993b [1956]) 70
- Vulcan's Hammer (1976c [1960]) 73
- Time Out of Joint (2003c [1959]) 76
- Conclusion: Super-everyman to solar shoe salesman 81
- 3 The Empire that Never Ended 85
- A matter of life or (life under the sign of) death 88
- The open and the universal 89
- The life-death chiasmus 91
- The fictitious event 96
- The messianic tension 97
- The remnant and messianic time 99
- The magic of language 102
- Sci-fi: The genre of 'as not' 105
- Conclusion: Gnostic politics 107
- 4 Objects of Salvation: The Man in the High Castle 113
- The fabulation of history 113
- Mechanization and paralysis 118
- Worldly remains 120
- Openings between worlds 124
- The tyranny of the concrete 128
- Objects of salvation 131
- Conclusion: Reality fields 134
- 5 How We Became Post-Android 137
- The mechanization of pot-healing 138
- The alien god 141
- The saviour in need 144
- Robot theology 148
- Humans: The cosmic bourgeoisie 151
- Android and theoid 157
- Creative destruction 161
- Conclusion 164
- 6 The Reality of Valis 169
- Salvator salvandus 173
- The believer and the sceptic 178
- The pharmakonic god 183
- Reduplicative paramnesia (time becomes space) 186
- The fabulative cure 191
- Recursion: Valis as limitlessly iterative soteriology 195
- Befriending god 197
- Conclusion 201.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 147422766X
- 9781474227667
- OCLC:
- 911729722
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