Problematizing humannes, anticipating posthumansim: Philip K. Dick's “Do androids dream of electric sheep?”

Written in 1968, the sci-fi novel by the American author Philip K. Dick “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” still retains the interest of the wide reading audience. The paper aims at elaborating upon the reasons for this lasting public enthusiasm which is claimed to relate not only to extremely successful film-versions of the book, but, even more so, to the highly topical message of the novel. In his antiutopian text, Philip K. Dick manages to put into focus the whole range of issues curraently associated with posthumanism. These are environmental problems caused by human activities, interplanet colonization escalating the conflicts of inclusion / exclusion, human / animal relations overlapping with the hybridization of natural and artificial, critical problems of future technological posthumanism manifesting themselves in highly problematic distinction between the humans and androids and in questioning the ontoethical status of the humans. Philip K. Dick explores philosophical and social underpinnings of the catastrophic future which lies in wait for humanity and seems to strongly adhere to such humanistic values as empathy (the main touchstone to differentiate between humans and androids), self-reflection (the predominant feature of the protagonist Rick Deckard), search for identity and for meaning as the principal vectors of the human life, mercy for the mentally handicapped. Philip K. Dick’s book can be viewed as one of the earliest caveats of the emerging trend to reconsider humanness in the sociocultural context of rapidly developing technology, various environmental threats, all kinds of hybridization and their ethical repercussions - and as such can be seen as truly prognostic, the most valuable part of it to be found in its ethical and social awareness and highly conscious refusal to suggest any final answer: essentially, the titled question seems eristically unanswerable