This thesis expands upon Philip K. Dick’s philosophy surrounding ‘androidization’, a process of degradation leading to the devolution of individuals into what he termed as ‘reflex-machines’. Often used interchangeably with Dick’s reference to the human-android, existing criticism has applied the ‘reflex-machine’ label broadly to characters throughout his work. This thesis aims to clarify the implications of such a state through a close reading of his three works, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, A Maze of Death, and A Scanner Darkly while detailing the processes that comprise the androidization which produces it. In doing so, it proposes that androidization is made up of a series of stages. This distinction is vital for understanding what Dick suggests for the potential recovery of the individual from the state of a reflex-machine and his hope for humanity at large. Split into two parts, this essay first examines the production of the reflex-machine with the support of theories by Louis Althusser, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, Michel Foucault, and Jean Baudrillard. It then considers the solutions that Dick proposes for the individual undergoing androidization by referencing theories by Carl Jung, as well as Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.

This thesis examines the forces that affect subjectivity in two novels by the author Philip K. Dick, Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. The close reading of these two novels makes use of postmodernist theory as its theoretical foundation. In these works, stable subjects are fractured through a series of disconcerting incidents originating in a “reality shift,” an event that sees the seemingly solid state of Dick’s speculative future worlds collapse. Split into three sections, this paper first positions Dick within a postmodernist tradition developed mainly by Lyotard, Hutcheon, and Baudrillard, supported by critics such as Sim, Malpas, and Kellner, among others. It then defines the reality shift and its underlying causes, three types of science fictional drugs across the two novels: Can-D, Chew-Z, and KR-3. Finally, this essay examines the full extent of Dick’s inquiry into subjectivity by exploring the metamorphoses the subjects of his novels endure.