different between speculative vs existential

English

Etymology

From Middle English, borrowed from Old French speculatif or directly from Late Latin speculativus, from Latin speculor.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?sp?kjul??t?v/
• Hyphenation: spec?u?la?tive

Adjective

speculative (comparative more speculative, superlative most speculative)

1. Characterized by speculation; based on guessing, unfounded opinions, or extrapolation.

   • "Don't dare laugh at us!" smiled his sister. "I wish we were back in Tenth Street. But so many children came […] and the Tenth Street house wasn't half big enough; and a dreadful speculative builder built this house and persuaded Austin to buy it. Oh, dear, and here we are among the rich and great; and the steel kings and copper kings and oil kings and their heirs and dauphins. Do you like the house?"
2. Pursued as a gamble, with possible large profits or losses; risky.
   • 2015, Paul Wilson, Alexis Sánchez sends Arsenal into final after gallant Reading go the distance (in The Guardian, 18 April 2015)[1]

     Little seemed on when Sánchez cut in from the left and sent a speculative low shot through a crowd of players, but though Federici had it covered he could not hold on to the ball and it squirmed over the line through his legs.

3. Pertaining to financial speculation; Involving or resulting from high-risk investments or trade.

Derived terms

• speculative damages
• speculative fiction
• speculatively
• speculativeness
• speculative philosophy
• speculative realism

Related terms

• speculate
• speculation
• speculativity

Translations

See also

• conjectural

Italian

Adjective

speculative

1. feminine plural of speculativo

Latin

Adjective

specul?t?ve

1. vocative masculine singular of specul?t?vus

English

Etymology

Late Latin existentialis, from existentia.

Adjective

existential (not comparable)

1. Of, or relating to existence.
2. Concerning the very existence of, especially with regard to extinction.
3. Based on experience; empirical.
   • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture I:

     In recent books on logic, distinction is made between two orders of inquiry concerning anything. First, what is the nature of it? how did it come about? what is its constitution, origin, and history? And second, What is its importance, meaning, or significance, now that it is once here? The answer to the one question is given in an existential judgment or proposition. The answer to the other is a proposition of value, what the Germans call a Werthurtheil ...

4. (philosophy) Of, or relating to existentialism.
5. (linguistics) Relating to part of a clause that indicates existence, e.g. "there is".

Antonyms

• non-phenomenal
• noumenal
• non-metaphysical

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Noun

existential (plural existentials)

1. (linguistics) Ellipsis of existential clause
   • 2014, Silvia Luraghi, Tuomas Huumo, Partitive Cases and Related Categories, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG (?ISBN), page 153:

     We argue that existentials form a radial category, with a prototype and less canonical instances, where the prototype is clearly definable but the actual borderline between existentials and other clause types is fuzzy.

2. (programming) Ellipsis of existential type

   Coordinate term: generic

Further reading

• "existential" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 123.

References