Il Paradosso della Finzione: Verità e Crisi del Reale in Philip K. Dick

Abstract

This article investigates the philosophy in the narrative of Philip K. Dick, exploring the fragmentation of reality and the relationship between simulacra, truth, and historicity. Beginning with the context of Cold War America, marked by media manipulation and epistemological crisis, the analysis focuses on Dick’s ontological skepticism and his ability to challenge the perception of reality. Through the distinction between the “own world” and the “common world,” inspired by Binswanger and Heraclitus, the article examines the conflicts between individual and collective experience, highlighting ontological solitude and the impossibility of empathy as metaphors for the present. The concepts of fragmented temporality and historical regression are analysed with reference to Dick’s dystopian worlds, culminating in a reflection on narrative as a tool to understand our time. Dick’s science fiction emerges not only as social critique but as a medium to reaffirm the centrality of empathy and to restore literature’s fundamental role in the relationship between truth and narration in philosophy.