Introduction: Reality and Speculation

Abstract

The Introduction discusses Speculative Realism and briefly presents indexicalism and what lies ahead in the book. Indexicalism is presented as a form of realism – a realism mostly about the others, and, as a consequence, about the Great Outdoors. It places, nevertheless, speculation on the side of a quest for totality that indexicalism aims to reject. The possibility of a deictic speculation is presented as a form to introduce the paradoxical ingredients in indexicalism. The crucial element in common between most forms of Speculative Realism and indexicalism is a commitment to transcendence in the form of opaqueness – or failure in transparency. That commitment contrasts with most of late 20th century emphasis on immanence and on an image of reality as inherently creative requiring no absolute exterior. Indexicalism, on the other hand, posits reality as being incomplete and therefore haunted by the Outdoors.