Pick and choose

The genealogist thus does not so much make arguments that go toward anything as he does take a momentary stance, pose as a critic for the time being, adopt a particular posture on a certain stage. For him, there are only masks to be worn, roles to be played, for this or that purpose—according to genealogical desire. The style can therefore be personal, even aphoristic, because the mask that is momentarily worn is particular to the role at this (and not that) moment. Foucault, for example, a master of genealogical inquiry, takes the word author to “name a role or function, not a person, and the use of a particular author’s name discharges this function by assigning a certain status to a piece of discourse” (51). Hence can genealogical inquiry dispense with the consistency that universal rationality requires. Authors are momentary functions, texts words that play this or that role, rationality the “this kind” or “that kind” of the role the words play. If “this kind” fundamentally conflicts with “that kind”—or if we can understand “this kind” but are completely puzzled by “that kind”—so much the better.—One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions, 180-81