Kybernétés’ Skeptical Shadow: On the Nature of Lem’s Silence

Abstract

The formal aim of the presented text is to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Stanisław Lem through one of the dimensions of his work. Achieving this goal takes the form of a reflection of available reasons that clarify why Lem fell silent in his literary form at a certain period and then never returned to writing literary texts (novels and short stories) and only wrote theoretical and philosophical reflections on topics that had so far been the subject of his literary work. I have tried to map and gather the reasons that Lem explicitly states, as well as the possible reasons that are associated with his theoretical background, more precisely with the reading of philosophical works.

Keywords

• kybernétés
• ambivalence
• skepticism
• vanity