Science, Speculative Philosophy, and the Expansion of Experience

In a previous post I noted Alfred North Whitehead's definition of speculative philosophy. In this post I ask the question: given that speculative philosophy is a creative endeavor, what is its relationship to science?

I've posed this question to somebody in a much better position to offer an insightful answer. But until he gets the chance to respond, I'll share a thought of my own.

Whitehead himself spent most of his career as a mathematical physicist, with philosophy as a side interest that he didn't write much about until fairly late in life. Pierce, responsible for his own works of speculation (though not set forth nearly so systematically as Whitehead) studied chemistry, worked in geodesy, and thought of himself primarily as a mathematician and logician. Both knew and respected science, and had a keen sense of when they were venturing beyond it.

Reprising Whitehead's quote from the previous post:

Speculative Philosophy is the endeavor to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted. (p. 3)

Science has greatly expanded the number and scope of the elements of our experience that Whitehead refers to. Observationally, we can look much farther into space with our telescopes. To smaller levels with our microscopes. To different ranges of the spectrum of light with our various detectors.

Also added to our experience are the understanding of relationships that scientists have worked out from the range of things they have seen. These days, we "see" apples falling under the influence of gravity, whereas in the past they were seen to be returning to the earth because they were also composed of earth.

While we acknowledge how incredibly expanded our experience is because of what science gives us, we shouldn't forget the narrowing it also involves. If an observation or experiment cannot be replicated, science cannot work with it. Usually this will simply mean that the observer or experimenter was mistaken, and we should accept this as the default assumption that will be correct in most cases.  But it is at least theoretically possible that it was a truly one-of-a-kind experience, never to be repeated.

Whitehead and Peirce were wise enough to recognize the possibility of such experiences. (William James went further, rushing to embrace them.)

If speculative philosophy is to answer to our experience: in the modern era, science provides most of this experience. It's possible that our current understanding of that expanded experience will undergo minor or even major revision--the history of science displays page after page of examples. So it's OK for speculative philosophy to go not just beyond but also against current science. But it must recognize that it does so on borrowed coin. The number of claims that it makes in the face of science, and the length of time it maintains those contrary claims, constitute a debt upon which interest compounds rapidly.