Content area
Full text
Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence Susan Schneider, Editor. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
Anthologies excavating science fiction film and television for nuggets of philosophical wisdom have not been in short supply lately. High-end philosophical contemplation may not have the prestige it carried in ancient Athens, but in the modern world, popular culture has picked up some of the slack. The great strength of scifi is that it so readily invites some fairly sophisticated commentary from diverse quarters, and for this reason, many academics (Susan Schneider included) are inclined to use AI or The Matrix as teaching tools in introductory seminars on the human condition. Dr. Schneider's compilation Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence reads like the carefully prepared course bulk-pack it probably began as.
The editor's readable introduction and lucid organization immediately distinguish Science Fiction from the usual mix-and-match film anthologies, some of which are methodologically opaque or thematically scattered. Instead, a certain kind of pedagogical consistency underlies most of the book: distinct, carefully chosen contributions help to ensure that it covers all of its bases: reality, identity, the mind, ethics, and time. (Experienced sci-fi viewers will probably understand the issues without the need for further elaboration.) Primary sources, in the...