The Philosophy of Science Fiction: Henri Bergson and the Fabulations of Philip K. Dick is an academic monograph by James Burton, published by Bloomsbury Academic. At 244 pages, the book offers a sustained philosophical reading of Dick's fiction through the lens of Henri Bergson's philosophy of duration, memory, and creative evolution.
The book is situated within a rich intellectual context, as indicated by the related Bloomsbury publications listed: Henri Bergson: Key Writings (edited by Keith Ansell Pearson and John O Maoilearca), Understanding Bergson, Understanding Modernism (edited by Paul Ardoin, S. E. Gontarski, and Laci Mattison), and Emmanuel Carrere's biographical work I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey into the Mind of Philip K. Dick.
Burton's study represents an important development in Dick scholarship, applying rigorous continental philosophical analysis to Dick's literary output. The concept of 'fabulation,' drawn from Bergson's late work on morality and religion, provides a framework for understanding how Dick's fiction creates new possibilities for thought and experience. The book demonstrates that Dick's intuitive explorations of time, consciousness, and the nature of reality have deep philosophical resonances with one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century.