Speculative thinking is back. This is anyhow the impression one gets from the titles of some recent publications and the labels of the philosophical trends that have emerged in the first decades of the twenty-first century. But what do we mean when we speak of speculative thinking or speculation today? What is the relationship between the classical uses of this term and those that are proposed today?In this introduction, we will (I) examine how the term ‘speculative’ has been employed in (...) contemporary philosophy, especially in French and Anglophone discussions, (II) provide a short historical overview of the concept of ‘speculation’, (III) look at the way the term is used by Hegel, (IV) propose a couple of suggestions regarding the possibility of a speculative philosophy today, and (V) provide a brief outline of the topics presented in the essays that comprise this issue. (shrink)

The laying-aside of resources, or saving, is a basic phenomenon among men, as it is among bees. It is a basis of material civilization.Toynbee has demonstrated the existence of twenty-nine human civilizations. He has studied these in a monumental masterwork.We believe that on the material level this effort can be expressed in one sentence: There is a close correlation between the rate of investment by a group or community and the expansion of its civilization.This conviction is the starting point of (...) our short analytical essay on the phenomena of investment. The essay is far from exhaustive. The reader will judge whether it is nonetheless useful. (shrink)