Indexicalism

Book excerpt: A radical new metaphysics where reality is not substantive but is indexical 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. The book articulates a metaphysical view of the other, both human and non-human (or the Great Outdoors as Meillassoux called it), that can never be totalized into a single or univocal whole. An innovative account of perception is developed, as a matter of our irreducibly situated relationship to this non-totalisable Outdoors. A coda then underscores the social-political implications of the critical position of this radical metaphysics in a post-colonial context through a meditation on the sites of Potosi and Yasuní National Park. Engaging with analytic and continental philosophy, Bensusan enlists Levinas, Whitehead, Heidegger, Kripke, Deleuze, Derrida, Benso, Harman, Garcia, Cogburn, McDowell and Haraway, in such a way that proves to be transformative for both crucial aspects of their work, as well as for contemporary approaches to thinking about what it means to be in our world and to reckon with the responsibilities that press upon us from the outside. Hilan Bensusan is Professor of Contemporary Philosophy at the University de Brasilia, Brazil.