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Natotevaal. War Chronicle

Foreword

‘Imagination – is just a part, although a significant one, of what usually denotes reality. Ultimately, it is unknown to which of the two genres – reality or fiction our world belongs.’

H.L.Borges

Philosophy and science fiction, like any other forms of culture can interact in many different ways. Certainly not all their features are equal.

If Borges, for instance, describes philosophy as a kind of fiction with inimitable literature-centrism, Derrida principally refuses to distinguish between (fiction) literature and philosophy, and in the best case fiction critics are only able to collect images and references to philosophy in science fiction works, thus philosophical consideration of fiction is hardly a noticeable opportunity.

In pursuit of reality, and in an attempt to lay the foundation of scientific knowledge, philosophy not only ignored imagination and fantasy along with their products (relating to purely subjective orders) but systematically and consistently tried to get rid of them by all means, so as to approach objectivity and – ideally – entirely possess it.

Only, perhaps, the establishment of non-classical way of philosophizing, that allowed and even suggested alternative interpretations of reality, has gradually changed the attitude to fiction.

It is peculiar that almost at the same time – in the second half of the XIX century – formation of proper literary fiction occurs (of course: Jules Verne, G.Wells).

Only in the second half of the XX century philosophy started to conduct special studies of the imaginary, virtual, semantics of possible worlds, etc. (along with gaining fiction maturity).

However, actual fiction still remained below the horizon of perception, although only fiction provides philosophy with a special field-space for deploying extravagant concepts, as well as unique tools for modeling and experimentation.

In order to highlight these features by heuristic fiction of philosophy and outline the shapes of the appropriate project, it is useful to see philosophy as an operator, which is applied to science fiction as a phenomenon.

If philosophy assumes the reflection of ultimate bases of culture as a whole, claims to critically examine the diversity of the world in general, then by the same gesture, which provides its versatility, condemns itself and has to delve into the specifics of each particular cultural form, each area and region of the world.

For instance, a mathematician studies mathematics, and a musician – music, while figuring out how music differs from mathematics or what comprises one or the other, is not of their concern, but the task of philosophy in its applied sense, so to speak.

Of course, the point here is not about each individual object as such – this table or that tree, though everything depends on the approach.

Philosophy sprouts: in addition to the philosophy of science separately appears the philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics and philosophy of biology, along with philosophy of nature and philosophy of culture – and even the philosophy of history, philosophy of law, philosophy of art and so on and so forth.

Therefore, philosophy – in terms of its various fields of application, which potentially generate not only its separate directions, but whole disciplines – it is appropriate to consider it as an operative: "philosophy X" or even "philosophy Y", where anything may serve as an independent variable.