科学幻想的哲学模式:《燃烧的世界》的科幻诗学

A Philosophical Mode of Scientific Fancy:The Blazing World’s Science-fictional Poetics

在近现代科学的发育过程中,哲学与科学具有同构性,二者又常套上诗之外衣。在哲学、科学与文学的互动中,科幻的诗学应运而生。自然哲学家玛格丽特·卡文迪什1666年首版的乌托邦游记《燃烧的世界》被视为原始的科幻小说。此书集中展示了卡文迪什经由幻想过滤的活力唯物主义哲学如何内蕴科幻的诗学。卡文迪什的诗学观不仅体现了17世纪西欧知识进步的时代特征,而且以其对幻想的独特认识展示了科学革命倡导的经验观察、理性精神与普遍怀疑如何孕育出一套关于科学幻想的创作逻辑。

During the growth of modern science,philosophy and science are isomorphic and oftentimes clothed in poetry.In the interactions among philosophy,science,and literature,the poetics of science fiction comes into being.Natural philosopher Margaret Cavendish’s Utopian travel writing The Blazing World,initially published in 1666,is widely regarded as a proto-science fiction.This book is a central showcase of Cavendish’s poetics of science fiction,which lies latent in her fancyfiltered philosophy of vitalist materialism.With its singular understanding of fancy,Cavendish’s poetics not only reflects the zeitgeist of intellectual progress in 17th-century Western Europe,but also demonstrates how the Scientific Revolution’s advocacy of empirical observation,rationality,and universal skepticism gives birth to a set of writing logic on scientific imagination.