Recognizing science fiction

Abstract Whereas science fiction has no identity, no necessary conditions, no essence, and no timeless and universal attributes, we should not be able to recognize it. We do. Something must allow it. This article will show how recognition and learning outweigh contingent feature-based academic projects on science fiction as ends, thereby revealing the socio-cognitive frames that buttress such recognition and proposes that we consider semio-cognitive models to refine our understanding of the genre. To that end, this article shows how science fiction is a creative mode recognizable by its prototypes and the theories built thereon. Ultimately, this article promotes a means-based socio-cognitive understanding of science fiction where it is free, in a new way, from retrospective academic projects to define it by ends.