In Proximity
On Hilan Bensusan's Indexicalism
Keywords:
Bensusan; Levinas; Joseph Libertson; Joseph Glass; Indexicalism; ProximityAbstract
This paper considers Hilan Bensusan's Indexicalism as a speculative realist take on the philosophy of Emanuel Levinas. I show how Bensusan extends Levinas' encounter with the Other to all perceptual encounters that a situated subject has with multiple other entities, including nonhuman ones. I then discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Bensusan's admittedly paradoxical approach. I conclude by considering how Bensusan's account of the asymmetry between the subject and the multiple others who address it relates to Joseph Libertson's account of Levinas, and to the difficult configurations that Libertson explores in his novels written under the pseudonym of Joseph Glass.
References
Bensusan, Hilan (2021). Indexicalism: Realism and the Metaphysics of Paradox.
Brandom, Robert B. (1994). Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment.
Burrows, David, and Simon O’Sullivan (2019). Fictioning: The Myth-Functions of Contemporary Art and Philosophy.
Derrida, Jacques (1978). Writing and Difference. Trans. Alan Bass.
Derrida, Jacques (2008). The Animal That Therefore I Am. Ed. Marie-Louise Mallet. Trans. David Wills.
Glass, Joseph (1997). Eyes.
Glass, Joseph (2000). Blood.
Griffin, David Ray (1997). “Panexperiential physicalism and the mind-body problem”. Journal of Consciousness Studies 4:3, 248-268.
Harman, Graham (2018). Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything.
Kant, Immanuel (2000). Critique of the Power of Judgment. Ed. Paul Guyer. Trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews.
Lem, Stanisław (2014). Solaris. Trans. Bill Johnston.
Lem, Stanisław (2020). His Master’s Voice. Trans. Michael Kandel.
Levinas, Emmanuel (1961). Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Trans. Alphonso Lingis.
Levinas, Emmanuel (1974). Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence. Trans. Alphonso Lingis.
Levinas, Emmanuel (1989). “Ethics As First Philosophy”. Trans. Sean Hand and Michael Temple. In The Levinas Reader, ed. Sean Hand, 75-87.
Libertson, Joseph (1982). Proximity: Levinas, Blanchot, Bataille and Communication.
Meillassoux, Quentin (2008). After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency. Trans. Ray Brassier.
Morton, Timothy (2013). Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World.
Priest, Christopher (1974). The Inverted World.
Rorty, Richard (1979). Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature.
Whitehead, Alfred North (1978). Process and Reality.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1974). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Trans. D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness. Revised Edition.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2009). Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker, and Joachim Schulte, Revised Fourth Edition.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Steven Shaviro
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
