Philip K. Dick and Philosophy

467 Pages·2011·1.77 MB·English

by  D. E. Wittkower

Table of Contents
Praise
Popular Culture and Philosophy Series Editor: George A. Reisch
Title Page
Through a Screen Darkly
Chapter 01 - Hollywood Doesn’t Know Dick
We Can Conceive It for Ourselves Wholesale
Free Will at the Box Office
Determinism’s Bounty on Free Will
Skepticism for Fun and Profit
What’s So Bad about Determinism?
What’s So Bad about Skepticism?
A Happy Ending?
Chapter 02 - A Quintessence of Dust
Show Me What You’re Made Of
Have You Ever Retired a Human by Mistake?
The Lung-less, All-Penetrating Masterful World-Silence
Do You Think Androids Have Souls?
The Cardinal Mystery of Creation
Chapter 03 - Dick Doesn’t Do Heroes
You’ve Been Adjusted
We Can Endorse That for You Wholesale
Nagging Spouses and Robotic Home-Wreckers
Scott versus Linklater
Deckard versus Arctor
From Hover Cars to Substance D
Through a Screen, Darkly
Chapter 04 - Ewe, Robot
How Animals Make Us Human
Narcissism in a “More Human than Human” World
Empathy in a “More Human than Human” World
The Shock of Being Alive
The Lives of Electric Others
Identity Crises
Chapter 05 - Just Who and How Many Do You Think You Are?
The User Illusion
In a Mirror, Darkly
You Don’t Always Get Along
The Outer Workings of the Mind
The Scanner-Self
The Valuable Self
Chapter 06 - Will You Survive a Trip to Rekall, Inc.?
Follow the Psyche
The Perils of Rekall, Inc.
Gotta Have Soul?
Future Selves and Imposters
Selfless?
Is It Live or Is It Memorex?
Chapter 07 - Scan Thyself
How Do You Know You’re Not an Android?
The Art of Knowing Arctor
What Does A Scanner See?
Phil Chews the Fat
Chapter 08 - Human or Machine, Does It Mind or Matter?
Don’t Think about It
. . . You Ever Take That Test Yourself?
I Love You, My Artificial Construct
. . . Because My Furnace Believed the House Was Cold
Shaky Theological Foundations
The Right Stuff
Soul Against the Archons
Chapter 09 - Matt Damon Is a Vast Sinister Conspiracy
A Variety of Free Will Worth Having
Terrible Freedom
Pre-Crime and Pre-Punishment
Freedom and Madness
Chapter 10 - How to Build a Democracy that Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Hundred
Years Later
Rule of the Wise
Spinning a Bottle
Throwing the Rascals Out
Checks and Challenges
How Can Random Machinery Be Rational?
Giving and Selling
Chapter 11 - We Can Manipulate You Wholesale
Sure I Deceived You, but What about Me?
Finding a Lever for Manipulation
Categorically, We Have an Imperative Problem
Utilitarian Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Coveralls
Only Remembered as the Blonde Shot in the Head
Like People, Like Organizations
Chapter 12 - Grow, My Dears, the Eugenicist Said
The Bad
The Good
The Ugly
And the Next Step
The World Is Fake
Chapter 13 - Things Are Seldom What They Seem
How Are Things in Glocca Morra—or Anywhere Else, for That
Matter?
Ma or Machine?
What’s Really Real?
Alternate Realities?
Back to Earth
Chapter 14 - Trauma of the Real
Breakthrough to the Real
Reality Is Not Real
Procession of Dummies
Remembrance of Being, Passed
Chapter 15 - Lies, Incorporated
The Epistemology of Deception
How Do We Get Deceived?
Who Deceives Us?
Circles within Circles
Self-Deception
How Can We Detect Deception?
Chapter 16 - The Blob Necessitates
Of Blob
The Nature and Origin of the “Mind”
The Origin and Nature of Affective Disorder
Of Plasmatic Bondage
The Power of the Intellect, or of Fat’s Emotional Liberation
Chapter 17 - The Gnosis of 2-3-74
Dick’s Gnosis about Gnostics
Dick’s Twins
Results of the Primordial Rape
Pink Light
Ay, There’s the Wub
Chapter 18 - Replicating Morality
Beyond Lies the Other
How to Tell if You Are Really Just a Robot
Can a Blade Runner Love a Robot?
How to Build a Moral Robot
PUBLIC RELATIONS GUIDE FOR NEW OFFICERS DIVISION OF
PRECRIME
01. Don’t We Arrest Innocent People?
02. But Is It Really Inappropriate to Punish Pre-criminals?
03. What Evidence Establishes Guilt?
04. What about Leaks?
Chapter 20 - If the Universe Isn’t Real, How Should We Treat Other People?
To Be or Not To Be—Is That the Question?
He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Other
Fifty Ways to Love Your Other
Puppets and Precogs
Chapter 21 - Knowing Tomorrow While Choosing Today
Freedom and Prediction
Outside of Time?
Prediction, or Sight?
Perfect or Probabilistic?
Chapter 22 - Total Recall’s Total Rethink
Memory and the Brain-Butchers
Owning Your Actions, Owning Your Past
Inpsychation and Chains of Will
Quaid’s Problem—Mucky Origins
Freedom Without Origins
Chapter 23 - Lonely Wolves
Society’s a Bad Hit (If You’re Banging Up, Cranking, or Popping)
Cultural Minority Report
The Problem with Drugs
It’s the Nausea
Wolves Finish Last
Futurity Doctored
Chapter 24 - I Know What You Did Next Summer
Pay Now, Live Later
I Can Predict What You (Don’t) Do Next Summer
Living in the Time of the Crime
Always Invest in the Future
Summarizing the Future
The Future as Predictive Text
Chapter 25 - Untimely Speculations
Human, All Too Human
Preparatory Human Beings
On the Advantage and Disadvantage of Eternity for Life
Chapter 26 - The Day Roosevelt Was Assassinated
The Story
Reality
Determinism
Time in the One Real World
Precog a Are You
Chapter 27 - Time in Unfixed Are You
Time through Travel You
Blur a Are You
Briefings
Chapter 28 - “Autofac”
Chapter 29 - “King of the Elves”
Chapter 30 - “The Golden Man”
Chapter 31 - “Piper in the Woods”
Chapter 32 - “The Exit Door Leads In”
Chapter 33 - “The Gun”
The Master’s Own Voice
Chapter 34 - Beyond Lies the Wub
Chapter 35 - The Eyes Have It
Skin-Jobs
Index
Copyright Page
Praise for Philip K. Dick and Philosophy: Do Androids
Have Kindred Spirits?
“Life sometimes imitates art, and we’re heading toward many of the
technologies and scenarios imagined by Philip Dick, one of the most iconic and
philosophical writers in science fiction. Philip K. Dick and Philosophy: Do
Androids Have Kindred Spirits? is a nice, accessible guide to many metaphysical
and ethical issues waiting in our future.”
—PATRICK LIN, co-editor of Robot Ethics and co-author of What Is
Nanotechnology and Why Does It Matter?
“Philip K. Dick and Philosophy: Do Androids Have Kindred Spirits? is an
intelligent, exciting, and highly entertaining read that will be valued by all
thoughtful Dick fans as well as philosophers. The original and thought-
provoking chapters assembled by Dylan Wittkower explore a vast range of
philosophical topics and display the breadth and depth of Dick’s writing with
great style.”
—MARYA SCHECHTMAN, author of The Constitution of Selves
“Philip K. Dick was one of the twentieth century’s most penetrating writers
concerned with the human condition. Mortality and self-knowledge obsessed
him, and his work on these topics is some of the most thoughtful we have seen.
Amazingly, Dylan Wittkower has managed to assemble a collection of thinkers
who not only understand Dick but whose explanations will help the rest of us
understand him better.”
—JOSEPH C. PITT, author of Thinking About Technology
“For anyone who’s ever wondered if they might be a replicant, Philip K. Dick
and Philosophy: Do Androids Have Kindred Spirits? is required reading. As
these writers show, some of the deepest questions that we confront—questions
about identity, free will, and our place in the universe—are perfectly illustrated
by the memorable characters populating Dick’s fictional worlds, from the
Nexus-6 androids, to the Precogs, to the customers of Rekal, Inc.”
—AMY KIND, contributor to Star Trek and Philosophy and Battlestar
Galactica and Philosophy
“Some minds reflect this age, others incubate the next. Humanity is about to
stumble into a new, perhaps terrifying age. Thanks to the incisive chapters Dylan
Wittkower has assembled in Philip K. Dick and Philosophy: Do Androids Hve
Kindred Spirits?, we may not do so blindly.”
—R. SCOTT BAKKER, author of The White-Luck Warrior, Disciple of the
Dog, and Neuropath
“An advanced degree in Dick-ology, an essential book for anyone wishing to
discover the shocking depth of Philip K Dick’s ideas.”
—DAVID GILL, publisher, Total Dick-Head blog
“Dylan Wittkower has assembled a fantastic collection of chapters analyzing the
deep themes of Dick’s stories, including the elusiveness of free will, the
ambiguous nature of personhood, and the uncertain reliability of knowledge.
Philip K. Dick and Philosophy: Do Androids Have Kindred Spirits? is a real
treat for fans of both Dick’s stories and the movie adaptations.”
—ERIC J. SILVERMAN, author of The Prudence of Love