https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1y6Ni4BODXkq6hJzcSPqCUKH81NrDOZPx?usp=sharing
So of what use is Derrida’s analysis? He exposes how the meaning of a text assumes various conventions and contains its own codes. He shows how a text achieves meaning, rather than what it means. He shows how the text is simplified. This method of limiting and manipulating the rich scope of language has always been the case, and is discernable amongst the earliest philosophers. Derrida illustrates this with an example from Plato’s Phaedrus. In this, Plato relates the myth of the ancient Egyptian god Theuth, who explained to the king of Egypt the benefit of teaching his subjects how to write. This would enable his subjects to improve their memory and increase their wisdom. Theuth claimed: “My invention is a medicine [pharmakon] for fortifying both memory and wisdom.” But the king objected that writing would produce the very opposite effect: “This invention will produce forgetfulness in the souls of those who have learned it because they will not need to exercise their memories, being able to rely upon what is written.” Theuth had merely discovered a pharmakon for reminding, not for memory itself. Similarly with wisdom. The king pointed out that writing would merely produce the appearance of wisdom, not its reality. It would encourage the delusion of wisdom, not actual inner wisdom.
Derrida points out that Plato’s myth contains a typical use of binary opposites, of either/or. Either writing is good for memory, or it isn’t. Yet it could in fact be both. Derrida now focuses on the word pharmakon. In Greek this means “medicine,” “cure,” or “potion.” (This is the origin of pharmacy.) But pharmakon can also mean “poison,” “bewitchment,” or “enchanting spell.” The word pharmakon thus covers both sides of the argument. Writing can strengthen the power of memory, and it can also drug its powers. The meaning of pharmakon becomes unstable in this context, and this instability introduces différence. Identity, binary opposites, either/or – these are eliminated, and instead we have the ambiguity of difference. The logic of Plato’s argument now begins to unravel, and instead we have undecidability.
Strathern, Paul. Derrida: Philosophy in an Hour (Kindle location 294-310). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle edition.
