The self-confidence of a philosopher

I considered all the usual attractions for a lover and decided she was the one to bring to my bed, confident that I should have easy success; for at that time I had youth and exceptional good looks as well as my great reputation to recommend me, and feared no rebuff from any woman I might choose to honor with my love.

(Pierre Abelard: Autobiography)

That's the spirit!  Scholastic philosophers get all the chicks.

Although it must be noted that that what first attracted Heloise to Abelard was his considerable songwriting talent.  

And Abelard has claimed that, before meeting Heloise, he had had no experience of the company of women.

De profundis

Every time giant squids appear in the news I am reminded of an old science fiction short story by Murray Leinster titled De profundis (nothing to do with Oscar Wilde).

The narration is told in the first person, and it pretends to be a report composed by a member of a species of intelligent, telephatic squid-like creatures who live in the abyssal depths. The creatures have a peculiar cosmology: for them the Universe is a shell of solid rock, full of water that is repelled from the center by some kind of natural force. That, for them, explains the decrease in pressure as you ascend, and the fact that most objects tend to sink.

However, the existence of gasses (on which they depend for flotability) is in contradiction with the theory. They come to regard gasses as some kind of spiritual substance, their souls in fact. When they die, the gas ascends to the center of the Universe, where the existence of an hypotetical Great Bubble is postulated.

As is to be expected, the protagonist has to undergo a trip to the surface, to find strange things like emerged landmasses and the Sun. The fact that the surface has quasi-religious significance in his cosmology only adds to the tales's charm.

Although the inclusion of telepathy cheapens it little (as it tends to happen whenever  that gimmick is used in science fiction), this is one of the best stories told from the point of view of the alien. Another great example is Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death by James Triptee, Jr.

Competitive Sports and Moral Theory

Dr. North put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "You can trust me. I'm not like those kids that beat you up, that morning."

Lemuel glanced up gratefully. "You know about that? I discovered the rules of their game were purely arbitrary. Therefore I naturally oriented myself to the basic reality of the situation, and when I came up at bat I hit the pitcher and the catcher over the head. Later I discovered that all human ethics and morals are exactly the same sort of --" He broke off, suddenly afraid. "Maybe I --" Dr. North sat down behind his desk and began shuffling the Rhine ESP deck. "Don't worry, Lem," he said softly. "Everything will be all right. I understand."

(Philip K. Dick: Null-O)

Vance and Lem

Polish science fiction author Stanislaw Lem is usually compared to the likes of Philip K. Dick, Borges, and Kafka, but I think some interesting similarities can be drawn with Jack Vance too. (Of course, Lem would have a pretty low opinion of Vance, as he had of most western science fiction. But let's ignore that.)

First and foremost, both Lem and Vance like to deal with failures of communication. In the case of Lem, those failures tend to be between different species: The planet Solaris and the scientists who study it, the natives of the planet Eden and the astronauts stranded there, the Quintans of Fiasco and the human contact mission. He uses them as methaphors for the Cold War, as a way tho show the limits of knowledge, and to critique anthropomorphism.

Vance depicts failed attempts at understanding between human cultures. The most extreme case is the conversation between Kergan Banbeck and the Weaponeer in The Dragon Masters, but there are a lot more examples strewn across Vance's body of work.

"I heard you distinctly," replied the Weaponeer. "Your words have no meaning, they are absurdities, paradoxes.

(Jack Vance: The Dragon Masters)

"Can you not understand me?" barked Kergan Banbeck in exasperation. He glanced at the sacerdote, an act of questionable decorum, then performed in a manner completely unconventional: "Sacerdote, how can I deal with this blockhead? He does not seem to hear me."

The sacerdote moved a step nearer, his face as bland and blank as before. Living by a doctrine which proscribed active or intentional interference in the affairs of other men, he could make to any question only a specific and limited answer. "He hears you, but there is no meeting of ideas between you. His thought-structure is derived from that of his masters. It is incommensurable with yours. As to how you must deal with him, I cannot say." [..] The sacerdote reflected. "He speaks not nonsense, but rather a language you fail to understand. You can make him understand your language by erasing all knowledge and training from his mind, and replacing it with patterns of your own."

(ibid.)

There are few aliens in Vance's stories: humans are more than weird enough. Not to be able to understand an alien mentality is unsettling; not to be able to do the same with a human one is even more so. For Vance, like for Max Weber, human societies are "suspended in webs of meaning they themselves have spun". But the configuration of those webs can diverge radically, even if their outer strands are attached to the same physical universe and a common human nature.

Vance and Lem are both satirists. In the case of the former it's a little difficult to see because of all the pulpy adventure, but it's there. Many passages from the Dying Earth books are reminiscent of Lem's Star Diaries, with their bizarre societies and strange cosmovisions. Both authors have penned roughly comparable satires of bureaucracy (Dodkin's Job and Memoirs Found in a Bathtub). Both authors have made fun of academic culture (compare the beginning of The Futurological Congress with the conclave of xenologists in Night Lamp).

Another similarity is that they share an uncanny ability to coin new words that sound just about right. Take for example the creative insults used by the robots to denigrate humankind in the eleventh voyage of the Star Diaries, or the ones directed at people who violate the societal norms of the utopia described in Vance's Wyst.

The apartments were originally intended to house male or female couples, or mated couples, but the philosophy was denounced as "sexivationist", and apartment assignments are now made at random, though often persons will trade about.

(Jack Vance: Wyst)

"Port Mar is hardly notable for sophistication; the Rhunes, however, consider Port Mar a most worldly place, characterized by shameless alimentation, slackness, laxity and a kind of bestial lasciviousness to which they apply the term 'sebalism'.

(Jack Vance: Marune)

Rearding female characters, neither Vance nor Lem posssess any remarkable skill at depicting them. Gustave Flaubert they are not.

Finally, Vance is no stranger to the Borgean delights of fictional erudite books and the reviews thereof. He did a little of that in the Demon Princes novels, which feature extracts form the work of a pompous philosopher-sociologist, Baron Boddisey. Although Vance hasn't devoted an entire book to reviews of imaginary texts, like Lem did in A Perfect Vacuum.

Puns

Do you mean to say the pun-question is not clearly settled in your minds? Let me lay down the law upon the subject. Life and language are alike sacred. Homicide and verbicide--that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its life--are alike forbidden. Manslaughter, which is the meaning of the one, is the same as man's laughter, which is the end of the other. A pun is primâ facie an insult to the person you are talking with. It implies utter indifference to or sublime contempt for his remarks, no matter how serious. I speak of total depravity, and one says all that is written on the subject is deep raving. [...] A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide.

(Oliver Wendell Holmes: The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table)

An English sea-captain being asked if he had read "The Exile of Erin," replied: "No, sir, but I should like to anchor on it." Years afterwards, when he had been hanged as a pirate after a career of unparalleled atrocities, the following memorandum was found in the ship's log that he had kept at the time of his reply:

Aug. 3d, 1842. Made a joke on the ex-Isle of Erin. Coldly received. War with the whole world!

(Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary)

Classical halitosis

On one occasion when giving a speech, Hiero, a Greek ruler in ancient Sicily, was interrupted by complaints about his bad breath. This revelation of what must have been a chronic problem distressed him considerably, and on returning home he reproached his wife for not having told him of it. She indignantly justified herself by saying that she had thought that all adult males smelt as he did.

(Gavin Betts and and Alan Henry: Teach Yourself Ancient Greek)