ABSTRACT
Jacques Derrida discusses ‘the pharmakon’ in Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus, with regard to Plato’s criticism of writing as a means of communication in comparison with speech. In Ancient Greek ‘pharmakon’ refers both to a medical remedy and to a poison. These represent in some respects contradictory meanings: the thing that damages the body and the thing that heals the body. The contradictory meanings provide a particularly convenient example for Derrida of the contradictions that condition all language and all meaning. There is no possibility of communication in language without the possibility of contradiction. Derrida looks at how Plato’s philosophy rests on a series of metaphysical oppositions. Metaphysics itself can be defined as the thought that relies on absolute oppositions. In Plato these oppositions include: good and evil; true and false; essence and appearance; inside and outside.
