Speculation in the Historical Sciences.

Adrian Currie (2018) argues that in historical scientific research, speculation is sometimes justified on pragmatic grounds. Hypotheses that outrun the empirical evidence may still offer indirect epistemic payoff. Although Currie frames the issues in a helpful way, the costs and benefits of speculation may be more of a mixed bag than his discussion would suggest. And his defense of speculation leaves some questions unaddressed, such as whether there is any justification for different levels of tolerance for speculation in different areas of historical science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]