We are glad to give notice of the release of the new issue of «Rivista di Estetica» (LXIV, 86/2024): Speculative Thinking, edited by Giulia Bernard, Luca Illetterati, and Zdravko Kobe.

Below you can find the rationale of the issue and the table of contents.

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The concept of speculative thinking is in many ways ambiguous. First, the concept of ‘speculation’ refers, on the one hand, to philosophical research, i.e., to the need for philosophy to remain committed to ‘pure’ thought and not to bend to instances allogenous to conceptual ones, while, on the other hand, it refers to financial transactions, aimed at profiting from fluctuations in market prices.
Second, even within philosophical discourse, the term remains equivocal. At times, ‘speculation’ refers to an inquiry that – precisely by being merely speculative – seems detached from the practical concerns of the world, thereby indicating the essential theoretical element of philosophical inquiry; at others, the term marks the extreme experience of thinking in which ordinary discursiveness touches its limits. After a period of relative oblivion, the notion of the ‘speculative’ has returned today within contemporary philosophical debate.
This special issue focuses on the notion of ‘speculative thinking’, both in its Hegelian and neo-Hegelian interpretations and in contexts that partially diverge from that tradition, aiming to philosophically explore the term’s rich and varied meanings.

Table of contents

Giulia Bernard, Luca Illetterati, Zdravko Kobe, Speculative thinking: An introduction

I. Speculative, speculative thinking, and dialectics

Gunnar Hindrichs, Il programma speculativo

Angelica Nuzzo, Speculative rationality and its dialectic: Thinking (in) the contemporary world

Quentin Meillassoux, Dialectique spéculative et spéculation non-dialectique. De l’usage d’une négation ésotérique dans l’oeuvre de Hegel

II. Speculative and language

Goran Vranešević, Speculative conception of thought: Hegel on language

Silvia Pieroni, La forma della proposizione speculativa tra scrittura filosofica e traduzione

III. Speculative, speculative materialism, and psychoanalysis

Giovanni Temporin, Meillassoux attraverso lo specchio. Sulla speculazione del materialismo speculativo

Alenka Zupančič, Lacan as speculative thinker?

Varia

Pio Colonnello, L’angelo triste di Wim Wenders. Innocenza, tempo, kairos

Stefano Ferrando, Dopo la fine dell’arte?

Costanza Penna, Binding the present and the future: Transgenerational social actions as joint commitments