Abstract
While speculation is deemed central to humanity’s evolutionary process and humans’ authenticity, Star Trek makes the argument that the absolute operates as a progressive dialectic. Therefore, when we speculate and garner knowledge we are fulfilling the promise of the absolute, which is rational and leading humanity toward a classless society, free of gender/ethnic biases. We speculate and achieve this knowledge in spite of the risk of death. Therefore, analytic philosophy, and its fear of error, is misplaced because humans existentially fear lack of knowledge of the absolute more than they fear error and the death that can result from error.
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- 1.
- 2.
Naeem Inayatullah, “Bumpy Space: Imperialism and Resistance in Star Trek: The Next Generation,” in To Seek Out New Worlds: Science Fiction and World Politics, Jutta Weldes, ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) (Inayatullah 2003).
- 3.
Ibid., 55.
- 4.
Ibid., 54.
- 5.
Ibid., 58.
- 6.
Ibid., 55.
- 7.
James M. Demske, Being, Man, and Death: A Key to Heidegger (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1970) (Demske 1970).
- 8.
“The Cage” was subsequently broadcast via the episode “The Menagerie” (1966—original series).
- 9.
“City on the Edge of Forever” (1967—original series).
- 10.
Taylor Carman, Heidegger’s Analytic: Interpretation, Discourse and Authenticity in Being and Time (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) (Carman 2007).
Bibliography
Carman, Taylor. Heidegger’s Analytic: Interpretation, Discourse and Authenticity in Being and Time. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Demske, James M. Being, Man, and Death: A Key to Heidegger. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1970.
Frankfurt, Harry G. The Reasons of Love. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006.
Inayatullah, Naeem. “Bumpy Space: Imperialism and Resistance in Star Trek: The Next Generation.” In To Seek Out New Worlds: Science Fiction and World Politics, ed. Jutta Weldes. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Singer, Irving. Philosophy of Love: A Partial Summing-Up. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011.
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Gonzalez, G.A. (2017). Speculation in Star Trek. In: The Absolute and Star Trek. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47794-7_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47794-7_3
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