'There is a splendid statement in one of Herzog's films. The main character asks himself a question and then says, Who will answer this answer? Actually, there is no question, answers are all one ever answers. To the answer already contained in a question (cross-examination, competition, plebiscite, etc.) one should respond with questions from another answer. One should bring forth the order-word of the order-word. In the order-word, life must answer the answer of death, not by fleeing, but by making flight act and create. There are pass-words beneath order-words. Words that pass, words that are components of passage, whereas order-words mark stoppages or organized, stratified compositions. A single thing or word undoubtedly has this twofold nature: it is necessary to extract one from the other—to transform the compositions of order into components of passage.'

Sound inference: Foucault numbers things all the time, but doesn't indent them, so he must not be an analytic philosopher.

'…proceeding from the middle, through the middle, coming and going rather than starting and finishing.'

Even in a single case, investigators and prosecutors (and defense attorneys) will try to come up with a 'theory of the crime'. —A kind of theory that seems innocuous, and indispensable, in comparison to the ones Wittgensteinians want to abjure. But look at the sorts of tests to which such theories are put; and note how they're tested by juries, by ordinary people.

'Unfortunately, excuses are too frequently conjured to avoid doing an autopsy: the "obvious" suicide, motor vehicle crash victims, the 85-year-old man found dead at home with no medical history, etc. In reality, there are two very good reasons to autopsy the "obvious": one is that sometimes the "obvious" is not… and the second is that the public we serve expects answers to questions that are not necessarily related to the cause of death.'

…an ethics of weights and measures, and not the burdensome and the immeasurable.

When people on TV watch TV, they watch the news; and the news is about them.

They don't actually watch it; they turn it on, and see a report, and then turn it off.

(… a juggernautish quality…)

Grammatical remarks seem to ask for expression in the present tense. But suppose you want to make grammatical remarks about, say, watching television. What we say about watching television, and what we mean by what we say. A present tense remark would fail to acknowledge that television's moment has passed, that that's not how it works, that's not what we (have to) do. A past tense remark renders it too distant, makes it seem as if history is being recounted, while somehow omitting the particular kinds of historically contingent necessities one means to call attention to in making grammatical remarks.