Speculative reason

Speculative reason or pure reason is theoretical (or logical, deductive) thought (sometimes called theoretical reason), as opposed to practical (active, willing) thought. The distinction between the two goes at least as far back as the ancient Greek philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, who distinguished between theory (theoria, or a wide, bird's eye view of a topic, or clear vision of its structure) and practice (praxis), as well as techne.

Speculative reason is contemplative, detached, and certain, whereas practical reason is engaged, involved, active, and dependent upon the specifics of the situation. Speculative reason provides the universal, necessary principles of logic, such as the principle of non-contradiction, which must apply everywhere, regardless of the specifics of the situation.

Practical reason, on the other hand, is the power of the mind engaged in deciding what to do. It is also referred to as moral reason, because it involves action, decision, and particulars. Though many other thinkers have erected systems based on the distinction, two important later thinkers who have done so are Aquinas (who follows Aristotle in many respects) and Kant.

References

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason [1781/1787], trans. Norman Kemp Smith, N.Y.: St. Martins, 1965.
Karim Mojtahedi, Kant's Critical Philosophy, Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1999.

Epistemology

Epistemologists	Thomas Aquinas Augustine of Hippo William Alston Robert Audi A. J. Ayer George Berkeley Laurence BonJour René Descartes Fred Dretske Edmund Gettier Roger Gibson Alvin Goldman Nelson Goodman Paul Grice David Hume Immanuel Kant Søren Kierkegaard Saul Kripke David Lewis John Locke G. E. Moore Robert Nozick Alvin Plantinga Plato Hilary Putnam Thomas Reid Gilbert Ryle P. F. Strawson Willard Van Orman Quine Bertrand Russell Timothy Williamson Ludwig Wittgenstein Nicholas Wolterstorff Vienna Circle

Theories	Coherentism Constructivist epistemology Contextualism Determinism Empiricism Evolutionary epistemology Fallibilism Feminist epistemology Fideism Foundationalism Genetic epistemology Holism Infinitism Innatism Internalism and externalism Naïve realism Naturalized epistemology Phenomenalism Positivism Reductionism Reliabilism Representative realism Rationalism Skepticism Theory of Forms Transcendental idealism Uniformitarianism

Concepts	A priori knowledge Analysis Analytic–synthetic distinction Belief Causality Common sense Descriptive knowledge Exploratory thought Gettier problem Justification Knowledge Induction Objectivity Problem of induction Problem of other minds Perception Proposition Regress argument Simplicity Speculative reason Truth more...

Related articles	Outline of epistemology Alethiology Faith and rationality Formal epistemology Meta-epistemology Philosophy of perception Philosophy of science Social epistemology

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