A speculative turn in science and philosophy of science

Abstract

This paper describes the main features and goals of the speculative work in modern sciences that has greatly accelerated since World War II due to the exponential increase in computing power and newly available theoretical and conceptual tools. It points to the long historical strand of speculative philosophical work in symbiosis with the sciences, suggests the reasons for its unexpected neglect in contemporary professional philosophy of science, why it should be a major approach, and why such pursuit is not inevitable. Finally, the paper outlines potential topics, fields, and tools for such collaborative work and argues it is likelier to be more fruitful today than at any point in the past hundred years.