Stephen Clark’s philosophical work has always been inspired by images and arguments drawn from science fiction, as well as by the long Platonic tradition of philosophy. In these papers (written between 1983 and 2023) on the writings of Kipling, Orwell, Lovecraft, Tolkien, and others, the recurring theme is an examination of the apparent conflict between the world as we are compelled to think it and our need for faith in the reality of humane values: on the one hand, the world revealed through scientific theory and exploration is immensely larger, older, stranger (and often grimmer) than either the world of our everyday dealings or that envisaged in the spiritual traditions; on the other, our knowledge of that strange world seems to depend on their being a real rational order of existence which is mirrored in our rational imaginings. What might this conundrum say about the possibilities of “life after death,” an “objective moral order,” “alien life,” the nature of consciousness, and whatever “new civilization” may emerge as our present civilizations decay? That is the core of this path-breaking work.
Praise
“The tentacles of Stephen Clark’s subtle mind extend and twine from the mundane to the oceanic depths of unplumbed realities. Most current cultural extrapolations are hopelessly naïve, given the overwhelming likelihood that our futures will be stranger than even the most adventurous might imagine. Drawing on authors as disparate as Plotinus, Kipling, Spengler, G. K. Chesterton, and Colin Wilson—along with an encyclopedic knowledge of science fiction (not least Lovecraft and Stapledon)—Clark presents deeply heterodox theses that will disturb the deracinated, but at the same time offer strange comforts to believers.”—SIMON CONWAY MORRIS, University of Cambridge
“Here is a nuanced, appreciative engagement with stories—stories told by our predecessors and by contemporaries alike. Joining literary sensitivity, philosophical adroitness, elegance of expression, and a perceptive openness to voices outside the present and beyond the reductionist consensus so frequently offered for our uncritical embrace, Stephen Clark invites us winsomely to ask how a broad range of tales well told might inform our reasoning, imagining, loving, choosing, and self-understanding.”—GARY CHARTIER, La Sierra University
“Boldly going where other academics and literati have feared to go, Other Lives & Other Worlds explores the close relationship between chosen works both of modern science fiction and established philosophy. Here Professor Clark skillfully interweaves the work of Colin Wilson, Olaf Stapledon, H. P. Lovecraft, Rudyard Kipling, George Orwell and others with that of Husserl, Plato, Plotinus, et al, producing a thought-provoking and original study.”—COLIN STANLEY, author of An Evolutionary Leap: Colin Wilson on Psychology
“Stephen R. L. Clark exhibits not only a remarkable grasp of a wide range of the science fiction genre but also an uncanny ability to disclose how the intellectual themes explored in this literature are built upon insights from ancient writers on metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics. That is, he ably traces issues in science fiction back to historical sources in ancient Greece and Rome; but he also starts with historical sources in the ancient period with a view to mapping their implications for our age. I highly recommend this book!”—DANIEL A. DOMBROWSKI, Seattle University
“Here is the sort of philosophy book Cthulhu would have given you as a present. At a time when students of philosophy were taught that their subject had to be dry and tethered to scientific facts, Stephen Clark took a leave of absence and turned to books of speculative fiction. He takes us on a philosophical journey across and beyond space and time to explore some of the bigger questions of human existence and philosophy as they are revealed in literature in general and science fiction in particular. Well written, deep, even entertaining, this is a book to be savored in the library or upon a dreamy afternoon, deep in time.”—AVIEZER TUCKER, Davis Center, Harvard University
About the Author
STEPHEN R. L. CLARK is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Liverpool, and an honorary research fellow in Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Bristol. At present, he is concerned mainly with the development of Neo-Platonic philosophy, the understanding and treatment of non-human animals, and the varieties of neurodiversity. His most recent publications relevant to these themes include How to Live Forever (1995), G. K .Chesterton: Thinking Backwards, Looking Forwards (2006), Philosophical Futures (2011), Can We Believe in People: Human Significance in an Interconnected Cosmos (2020), and How the Worlds Became: Philosophy and the Oldest Stories (2023).
