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Subjects of Nature. A Speculative Interpretation of Non-Humans

During the past few years a great number of attempts have been made to reinstate speculative philosophy. Although these attempts differ greatly among one another, they do have one question in common: is it possible to have an experience of nature that does not follow, exclusively, the lines of a human perspective? The question I would like to ask here concerns the place of the subject in speculative thought: What should we expect from the association of two terms (subject and speculative philosophy) that have crystallized tendencies this diametrically different in contemporary philosophy: on the one hand a project in philosophical anthropology that will consider nature based on its impact on a human subject that actually experiences it, and on the other hand a philosophy of nature that will infer nature’s characteristics without referring directly to an anthropological subject. The speculative approach that I would like to develop provides resources of a particular kind, especially when considering philosophers having remained more or less minor during the twentieth century such as G. Tarde and A. N. Whitehead upon which I wish to center my analysis of the question of »subjects of nature«.