Introduction to the first issue

The first thing to say about this issue is that the broadness of thematic range and stylistic forms in the essays here is deliberate, and functions in many ways as a better indication of the guiding intent driving this journal than anything else that could be said. In the Journal of Continental Philosophy we aim then to be genuinely open to themes, to styles, and to approaches, and while it is true that we are working within and directed toward what is loosely defined as the “continental” tradition, the single and sole “orthodoxy” to which we hope to hold ourselves is that we are interested in promoting genuine thinking, honest and rigorous reflection, and careful scholarship so far as we can. This defines the ideal of what we take to be the measure of real quality. Given that it is impossible to seize reason in advance and prescribe what future forms it must entail, the journal is obliged to reflect this most basic of facts: thought that allows itself the luxury of orthodoxy risks becoming a lazy form of thought, where the danger always presents itself that our thinking is already done for us in advance; that our task is merely to fill in the details. Our hope is to remain open to thinking that does not submit itself to any such straightjackets.