© Philosophy Today, Volume 63, Issue 4 (Fall 2019).
ISSN 0031-8256 823–844
Philosophy Today
DOI: 10.5840/philtoday20191218294
Think We Must! (Otherwise)
MONIKA ROGOWSKA-STANGRET
Abstract: Tis essay considers the phenomenon of almanacs, encyclopedias, glos-
saries, lexicons, word books, vocabularies, companions, and (theoretical) toolboxes,
which appears to be an outstanding feature of humanities today. By limiting her dis-
cussion to six specifc examples of this genre, the author asks the following questions:
Why is it that this method became so prolifc? What are the objectives of almanacs,
glossaries, and vocabularies? What do they do to thinking, writing, researching? What
can they say about the moment we are in? And how do they contribute to defning
this moment? Tose questions orient discussions around humanities today toward
the ethico-political practice of thinking otherwise.
Key words: glossary, lexicon, almanac, knowledge production, otherwise, Anthro-
pocene, the Posthuman
Tink we must. (Woolf 1938: 95)
Rather than going for the new object of study, the new product to consume,
one should work on new ways of seeing, of being, or of living the world . . .
and to assess how—in our very ‘resistance’—we may have been working in
complicity with what we set out to criticize. (Trinh T. Minh-ha,
cited in Bunz, Kaiser, and Tiele 2017: 7)
A
lmanacs, encyclopedias, glossaries, lexicons, word books, vocabular-
ies, companions, (theoretical) toolboxes pop up like mushrooms in
the forests of the humanities in recent years. In this essay I investigate
this phenomenon, acknowledging the fact that the current issue of Philosophy
Today uses the same structure.
1
Why is it that this method became so prolifc?
What are the objectives of almanacs, glossaries, and vocabularies? What do they