The Socio-Ontological Solipsism in the Work of Philip K. Dick

Abstract

An important feature of the work of one of the most influential science fiction writers of the last century, Philip Kindred Dick, is the manifestation of different experiences of reality by one or more actors – creating an impression among readers that it is possible to speak of several different planes of existence within a single narratively given reference frame. Contrary to other authors who have dealt with this problem, we do not interpret them in terms of parallel or alternative ontologically equal realities, but as ontologically different existential sources, which will, through narrative resolution, in most of Dick's work, pour into one social plane. Without going into the literary and artistic aspects of the work, this analysis reveals its still unrecognized cultural message – socio-ontological solipsism, relevant to the understanding of not only the twentieth century but contemporary social utopias as well.