In Meillassoux’s terminology concerning the age of the correlate, indexicalism is not strong correlationism because exteriority as such is thought through in indexical terms. It is not weak correlationism –the thesis that we cannot know anything but correlations even though something else can be thought through– because we can know the exterior as exterior even if it is never fully transparent. The others are not fully known in their indexical structure but they are taken as others and leave traces on what is known (at least because each position has an inside and an outside). Perhaps indexicalism is then some sort of metaphysics of subjectivity, the term that Meillassoux borrowed from Heidegger: or “subjectalism,” as he subsequently decided to call these positions[xxiv]. Indexicalism holds that there are deictic absolutes, but these absolutes are not correlations precisely because they involve the others, the outdoors, the exterior. Its Whiteheadian ingredient places it in the middle of things with no privilege granted to the human subject, while its Levinasian component makes sure that exteriority is taken seriously. There is still maybe a fear that deictic absolutes will end up being no more than phenomena and that there are things-in-themselves that are not accessible (neither knowable nor even thinkable). But this is only possible if a substantive –and not indexical– subject is conceived in such a way that deixis will merely be things-for-this-(substantive)-subject. If this subject is positioned, it will have a horizon and therefore an exterior. Indexicalism and the metaphysics of the others recommend a strong realism about the Great Outdoors and diagnose the opponents of such realism as engaging in some form of substantivism according to which situatedness is explicitly or tacitly abandoned.

In Meillassoux’s terminology concerning the age of the correlate, indexicalism is not strong correlationism because exteriority as such is thought through in indexical terms. It is not weak correlationism –the thesis that we cannot know anything but correlations even though something else can be thought through– because we can know the exterior as exterior even if it is never fully transparent. The others are not fully known in their indexical structure but they are taken as others and leave traces on what is known (at least because each position has an inside and an outside). Perhaps indexicalism is then some sort of metaphysics of subjectivity, the term that Meillassoux borrowed from Heidegger: or “subjectalism,” as he subsequently decided to call these positions[xxiv]. Indexicalism holds that there are deictic absolutes, but these absolutes are not correlations precisely because they involve the others, the outdoors, the exterior. Its Whiteheadian ingredient places it in the middle of things with no privilege granted to the human subject, while its Levinasian component makes sure that exteriority is taken seriously. There is still maybe a fear that deictic absolutes will end up being no more than phenomena and that there are things-in-themselves that are not accessible (neither knowable nor even thinkable). But this is only possible if a substantive –and not indexical– subject is conceived in such a way that deixis will merely be things-for-this-(substantive)-subject. If this subject is positioned, it will have a horizon and therefore an exterior. Indexicalism and the metaphysics of the others recommend a strong realism about the Great Outdoors and diagnose the opponents of such realism as engaging in some form of substantivism according to which situatedness is explicitly or tacitly abandoned.