Short Cuts

“Knowledge . . . is made for cutting” (Foucault 1998, 380). With this proclamation, Michel Foucault calls us to a “slanted perception” (382) whose “deliberate” aim is to “appraise, to say yes or no, to follow all of poison’s traces, and to find the best antidote” for it (382, trans. modified). A cutting knowledge cuts to the chase, cuts the crap, occasionally cuts up with laughter. In that cutting spirit—touché!—we are pleased to introduce here a new regular feature of philoSOPHIA: “Short Cuts.” As the title implies, this section of the journal provides a forum for brief, incisive, explicitly slanted commentaries that cut: reflections, ruminations, rants, appraisals, and agitations on theoretical issues that speak directly to contemporary concerns. We hope these “Short Cuts” will agitate you, our readers, arouse your interest and, as the Latin agitare suggests, set things in motion for other exchanges and short cuts. We are especially proud to inaugurate this new section of the journal with Emily Parker’s challenge to philosophy as a field whose disciplinary norms not only perpetuate the exclusion of women, queers, people of color, and those who are not able-bodied, but also violate philosophy’s own definition of itself as an intellectual endeavor. As Parker puts it: “‘Philosophy’ is whatever directs fundamental questions at itself,” and yet, when it comes to its own disciplinary exclusions, philosophy “does not allow the question of what philosophy is to be considered.” We are grateful to Parker for setting “Short Cuts” in motion and encourage you, our readers, to write your own “Short Cuts” (maximum three thousand words) for consideration in future issues of the journal.

—The Editors