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All of the philosophy in Anathem is just shuffling of names and descriptions of real work by real-world philosophers. The "Sconic thought" of Anathem is mostly
by ubernostrum 11y ago
All of the philosophy in Anathem is just shuffling of names and descriptions of real work by real-world philosophers.
The "Sconic thought" of Anathem is mostly Kant (as is the discussion of beauty, which is almost a literal quotation of Kant on the sublime); the "fly-bat-worm", and wondering what it would be like to be a bat and experience the world through its senses is a nice allusion to Thomas Nagel.
Back when I first read Anathem I kept a running set of notes mapping the book's presentation of philosophy to the real-world thinkers and schools they corresponded to. Might have to dig it up again.
- Florin_Andrei 11y agoReading Anathem and trying to figure out the parallels with the real world is quite entertaining.
- gshubert17 11y agoStephenson says in the interview that the fly-bat-worm is from Husserl. I see the link to Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat?" http://organizations.utep.edu/portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf http://organizations.utep.edu/portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf
- ubernostrum 11y agoI didn't do enough Husserl, so Nagel was what I went to with "what's it like to be a bat". I will say it's very clear that Stephenson read his Kant when prepping to write Anathem; as a basic layperson's introduction to Kant's critical philosophy, the book is quite good.