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[German Version] In everyday language, reflection is synonymous with contemplation or critical consideration. In this usage, it loses the specific element of reflexivity (self-reference) that it has by etymology (Lat. reflectere, “bend back”) and has been central to its philosophical use. Reflectio was used in this sense in the High Middle Ages (e.g. by Thomas Aquinas) as an alternative to reditio in seipsum to translate Greek epistrophḗ, which Neoplatonists like Proclus used for the return of the mind to itself. Later thinkers like Nicholas of Cusa could make reflectio an organiz…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies 1. The use of the term speculation in religious studies is not divorced from its use in philosophy (see II below) and everyday language, but – especially in the phenomenology of religion – it has been used in a sense specific to religious studies, particularly to denote reflective, rationalizing, and systematizing deliberations regarding a particular religion, such as have arisen in certain historical situations (e.g. cultural upheavals) and various theoretical contexts (cultic, cosmological, mystical, etc.). The philosophy of religion, religious philosophy, and theology all count as diverse speculative and theoretical embodiments of…

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