Speculation

“Speculation” originally meant “reflective observation.” It came to mean “conjecture” or “mere conjecture” as philosophers strove for certainty, consecrating science as rigorously acquired knowledge accumulated through application of the scientific method, and devalued the cognitive status of other discourses. The present conventional meaning of speculation, where the place of observation has disappeared, is a by-product of this consecration. In this entry I show how, through efforts to defend the status of these other discourses, the original meaning of “speculation” was not only revived but built upon by speculative philosophers. They showed that speculation is primordial to all experience and thinking, with past speculations embodied in language as “dead” metaphors. Revealing the possibility of elaborating alternative metaphors frees us from not only these dead metaphors to overcome the dead ends of current science, opening up new possibilities for enquiry, but the possibility of reconceiving ourselves and our place in nature. In this way, speculation makes it possible to transform ourselves, creating radically new ways of living and new forms of life. On this view, speculation, by opening new possibilities, could free us from the destructive trajectories of current civilization.