Speculative realism

Abstract

This chapter considers the two opposed senses of “speculation” at work in the widely known group of Speculative Realist philosophers. One sense of the term, originating in G.W.F. Hegel and represented by Quentin Meillassoux, treats speculation as a manner of gaining access to the absolute. The other sense comes from Alfred North Whitehead and is defended by Object-Oriented Ontology and points in the opposite direction: the impossibility of ever gaining access to the ultimate generalities.