当今时代对思辨哲学的需求（英文）.pdf

Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, vol. 8, no. 1, 2012 ON THE NEED FOR SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY TODAY Andrew Taggart ABSTRACT: ‘On the Need for Speculative Philosophy Today’ takes seriously Hegel’s claims that speculative philosophy begins in diremption and ends in higher-order conceptualization. To make Hegel’s theses more perspicuous, I examine the set of modern life needs—historical, metaphysical, phenomenological, and political—that give rise to speculative philosophy. I then attempt to show that speculative philosophy’s ultimate aim is to provide us with higher-order consolation. In the final section, I mean to draw on the second sense of speculation, conjecturing that rational form of inquiry I have undertaken is a propaedeutic to ‘philosophies of action’: philosophy of life and public philosophy. KEYWORDS : Speculative Philosophy; Hegel; Reason 1. THREE PHILOSOPHICAL FIGURES ‘The task of philosophy is impiety and corruption’. So proclaimed Simon Critchley during a public event sponsored by the New York Public Library and held at the New School for Social Research on January 26, 2011. The occasion was the projected release of James Miller’s book Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche at the end of January. The title of the panel was ‘Does Philosophy Still Matter’? A few thin