The blogger is attempting to compile a that represent "some of the best philosophical science-fiction." The only Heinlein on the list so far is By His Bootstraps, under the heading "Philosophy of Space and Time." I know this community can do better, with all the philosophical influences in Heinlein's short stories. Anyone game to contribute?

I am having a hard time contriving an operational definition of "philosophy" under which "philosophy of space and time" is exemplified by By His Bootstraps. Anyone care to help me out?

Um, well, okay, then does I Will Fear No Evil exemplify the philosophy of gender identity?

IWFNE did not describe ANY differences in a person because of gender - the heroines were identical to his heroes with a few minor appendages tacked on here and there. IMHO. If you want to look at what I believe is a GREAT treatise on gender identity I think Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness still holds up.

I scanned the Pierce's blog post; he mentions "Solipsism/External World Skepticism" as a category. Ok, regarding Heinlein, that one's too easy.

There is no category for "Political Philosophy;" if there was, I'd nominate "Coventry."

I'm currently rereading Waldo and think that there might be something there that belongs here. I may post a quote later today, when I've got the book in my hands.

Perhaps "By His Bootstraps" was included simply because its protagonist is a philosophy student?

iirc, in "By His Bootstraps" the word "epistemology" is used. Q.E.D.

If we are wandering slightly from short stories (what exactly is the definition of a "short" story?) Then surely one of the biggest philosophical stories is Starship Troopers. RAH even includes some very deep and long philosophical arguments for the basis of the social and economic make up of the polictcal system in place - his characters are even required to study History & Modern Philosophy. Poor old Johnny Rico has to become an expert to gain his comission - rather him than me!

I agree that Jonathan Hoag makes a statement - philosophical? not too sure - I am but a simple man! And Lazarus waxes lyrical many times in TEFL on his personal philosophy. And what about Job? Surely there is the big "is it God" question - thought by many (well me anyway!) to be the main point of philosophy! I might have missed the point somewhere along the way as I have never quite undestood what it (philosophy) is all about.

Why is there air? = To blow up baloons with!

Is this a question? = Are you asking me?

Why has no one mentioned 'world as myth' from both "The Number of the Beast" and "To Sail Beyond the Sunset"? Surely someone else must see 'world as myth' is a philosophical notion.

Hmm. "There is something in what you say," Sergei, but I admit being perpetually bothered by some aspects of Heinlein's "strong women." Understand, I've grown up and lived in a world of strong, self-determined women, so I do have a basis on which to form an opinion. Heinlein's characters of that stripe never come across as particularly feminine or even female except in dry descriptives. Maybe it's not that they're male characters with female names, but a more generic interpretation of a strong character with female shadings - where the male characters have NO shadings, masculinity being the assumed state.

Reproductive organs aside, I think it perceived gender does greatly shape individuals in this time and place, and Heinlein has mostly written about a form of our time and place. So yes, I think that a convincing female character would have some basically different perceptions, ideas, reactions and thoughts from a male or assumed-masculine character, and I don't think Heinlein ever mastered that. He hung a frilly dress on a neuter character, and not often convincingly.

I think both parties have a point: No, Heinlein did not do particularly convincing female characters; yes, he did an admirable job of eroding assumptions and boundaries given the era, and much more so the genre, in which he worked.

Let me drag in a much later example which may not be entirely comparable but with which I am far too familiar: Babylon 5. There are at least three VERY strong female characters, each of whom do world-shaking things, convincingly. All three are very feminine and very female in my perception. (For those who know: Delenn, Ivanova and Lyta.)

Then there's a character who has at least as much brass as any strong character in the series and is front-and-center for a full season. The character is played by a woman (a very luscious woman, indeed - Tracy Scoggins in her prime). However, I have always been bothered by the character, who absolutely never says or does one single thing that is identifiably "female" or "feminine." You could CGI in a male figure and no one would ever notice the difference. (We're about to rewatch the fifth season and I will again be watching for the SLIGHTEST indication that Lochley is "female" beyond her genes.) That, unfortunately, is how Heinlein handled his strong female characters: descriptively luscious, sometimes to extremes, but in speech, action and revealed thought... utterly neuter/assumed masculine.

Seems to me that no discussion of gender identity in Heinlein's writing is complete without considering " 'All You Zombies--'," one of my favorite short stories. Question: Did Heinlein give any serious thought to the shifting gender identity of the protagonist (i.e., from his/her point of view, there being no other in the story), or did he just write it as a lark, the story equivalent of making a Moebius strip out of construction paper? All I know is that writing it was enjoyable for him, rather than a chore (so says his brief note before "Zombies" in a 1963 anthology*), which says nothing about how he may have prepared to write it.

*The Worlds of Science Fiction, Robert Mills, Ed.; early-1970s mass-market edition.

AYZ certainly has some interesting issues to consider, but nothing that changes my thoughts above. We hardly ever even meet "Jane" and thus know the protagonist only through iterations that might be termed avatars of Panshin's Angry Young Heinlein Man and Wise Old Heinlein Man. All else is window-dressing.

But we meet nobody but Jane--it's strongly implied that there may be nobody but Jane. And the Wise Old Man is really a more of a sad and desperate old m... er, person trapped by fate and facing the most existential of loneliness, with no correlation I can see to any sort of Merlin/Obi-Wan mentor figure, and he makes it very clear at the end that he is, was, and continues to be Jane.

Gender isn't the point of "-ayz-"--I don't think that gender is the central point of any of Heinlein's work, with the possible exception of "Delilah and the Space-Rigger." (eta: Upon further thought, no, "Delilah" is mainly about fairness and equal treatment. Delilah could just as easily have been facing racial or religious discrimination, although the plot resolution wouldn't have worked the same way.) "-ayz-" is essentially about the worry that we're each alone in Plato's Cave and that true companionship in that situation might turn out to be fundamentally impossible.

However, "-ayz-" is a great example of the attitude towards gender typically shown in Heinlein's work--that it is essentially a superficial physical characteristic, no more fundamental than hair color (possibly less so, in the case of red-heads anyhow.)

One may disagree with this point of view--most people do. But chalking it up to a failure of technique--that Heinlein would have written gender "better," but didn't know how--seems to me to be a trivialization of an unpopular and unusual, but intriguing, perspective.

I never thought of the story as taking place in a universe where there was nobody but Jane. To do so, you'd have to think the desk guy he checks in with, near the end, is a yet older version of him/herself. Not out of the question, I suppose - but there is also the note about agreeing to be bought out by his partner (presumably not another version of himself) as well as historical references (the Mistake of '72 and Fizzle War of 1963) that wouldn't need to be named, nor would they have occurred, in a universe consisting only of Jane.

This last point made me think of the wonderfully titled Brian Aldiss story "Let's Be Frank," which for most of its length concerns a shared consciousness (starting in England and spreading over centuries and continents) and the social changes that ensue.

JJ, I probably shouldn't have to point you to a good thumbnail definition of , other than to say that the last entry in the definition says, "See: 'All You Zombies...'"

I have to say that I've always admired All You Zombies at an intellectual level much more than an emotional level. More than any other Heinlein I can think of it is transparently a "set piece". This isn't fatal, of course (practically every sf critic I can think of loves it to distraction), but at some emotional level I have less love for it just for perceiving the "Eat that, Damon Knight" factor I perceive in it --that does a little damage to the suspension of disbelief factor I've always treasured in my favorite sf (and why I believe that Damon Knight is more admired by cognoscenti than loved by the masses).

Hmm, "Beyond Doubt" perhaps goes in the "transparent set piece" catagory as well, but isn't good enough on its own merits to feel much regret about easily perceiving that fact.