Indexicalism
Realism and the Metaphysics of Paradox
Published on 28. September 2021
Book
Hardback
232 pages
978-1-4744-8029-1 (ISBN)
Description
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.
Reviews / Votes
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. -- Christopher RayAlexander 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. -- Paul M. Livingston, University of New MexicoMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
503 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4744-8029-1 (9781474480291)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
06/2021
1st Edition
Edinburgh University Press
€21.49
Available for download
Person
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 diaspora da agencia - 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), Heraclito - Exercicios de Anarqueologia (Heraclitus - Exercises in anarcheology) (Ideias e Letras, 2012) and Excessos e Excecoes (Excesses and exceptions) (Ideias e Letras, 2008).
Content
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 Potosi
Epistemic Abundance
The Potosi Principle
Ch'ixi
Being Up for Grabs
Absolutely Situated
Bibliography Index
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 Potosi
Epistemic Abundance
The Potosi Principle
Ch'ixi
Being Up for Grabs
Absolutely Situated
Bibliography Index