Indexicalism: Realism and the Metaphysics of Paradox(Speculative Realism)

Hilan Bensusan clarifies the logic and structure of an essentially situated and indexical metaphysics that is paradoxical and can also be regarded as a chapter in the critique of metaphysics. Bensusan articulates a metaphysical view of the other both human and non-human, in what Meillassoux calls 'the great outdoors' that can never be totalised into a single or univocal whole. He develops an innovative account of perception, as a matter of our irreducibly situated relationship to this non-totalisable outdoors. In the book's coda, Bensusan underscores the social-political implications of this radical metaphysics in a postcolonial context in a meditation on the sites of Potosi in the Andes and Yasuni National Park in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Equally at home with analytic and continental philosophy, Bensusan enlists Levinas, Whitehead, Heidegger, Kripke, Deleuze, Derrida, Benso, Harman, Garcia, Cogburn, McDowell and Haraway. He does so in a way that proves to be transformative for crucial aspects of their work, for contemporary approaches to thinking about what it means to be in our world, and for reckoning with the responsibilities that press upon us from the outside.

Table of Contents:
Preface Series Editor’s Preface Introduction: Reality and Speculation Speculative Realism and the Great Outdoors Totality and Speculation Other Dialogues The Paradox of Deictic Speculation 1. Indexicalism: A Paradoxico-Metaphysics Indexicalism Paradoxico-Metaphysics The Routes to Indexicalism (and Paradox) Situated Metaphysics Monadologies Totality Demonstratives and Proper Names Tense Realism and Baroque Realism Horizon Measurement Exteriority and Externalism Proximity Object-oriented Tentacular Thinking 2. The Metaphysics of the Others The Others The Physis of the Others Perspectivism The Metaphysics of the Others in the Age of the Correlate After Speculation The Priority of the Others The Interrupted Nexus Process Metaphysics of the Others Robinsonology and Transcendental Xenology From the Other to the Great Outdoors Perception and Supplement 3. The Hospitality of Perception Doors of Perception Hospitality and the Given The Complexities of Receptivity Importance and Supplement Perceiving is Responding Metaphysical Empiricism Pan-perceptualism Proximity, Conversation and Experience Deictic Absolutes Coda: The Circumscription of Potosí Epistemic Abundance The Potosí Principle Ch’ixi Being Up for Grabs Absolutely Situated Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Hilan Bensusan is Professor of Contemporary Philosophy at the University of Brasilia. He is the author of Being Up for Grabs: On Speculative Anarcheology (Open Humanities Press, 2016). His other books are published in Portuguese: A diáspora da agência - Ensaio sobre o horizonte das monadologias (The diaspora of agency – Essay on the horizon of monadologies) (EdUFBA, 2018), Linhas de animismo futuro (Lines of future animism) (Mil Saberes, 2017), Heráclito - Exercícios de Anarqueologia (Heraclitus – Exercises in anarcheology) (Ideias e Letras, 2012) and Excessos e Exceções (Excesses and exceptions) (Ideias e Letras, 2008).

Review :
This invaluable work interrupts metaphysical speculation to show how receptivity is always grounded in hospitality. The horizon of thought is determined by that which lies beyond it. The others who remain outside resist totality, thus freeing us for infinite responsibility. Bensusan’s paradoxico-metaphysics allows us to warmly welcome the Other’s call. One of the most important books in metaphysics to appear in recent years. Arguing that our metaphysical, epistemological, and ultimately ethical engagements with the world must fundamentally affirm the existence of indexicals, Bensusan's position is both radically new and yet centrally situated within the most significant currents of contemporary philosophy.