Pharmakon

In Philosophy

Derrida writes of the Socratic pharmakon in Dissemination. In the text, he refers to a kind of power hidden in words. This power / metaphoric substance in a text - or rather anti=substance - resembles a drug since it suggests a depth while only revealing an ever changing surface (70). Efforts to determine its play result in indeterminacy. Derrida cites the example of the Phaedrus, whose entire dialectical play amounts to a series of repetitions. As pharmakon, writing represents a discursive supplementarity whose meaning defers itself into other meanings. Accordingly, when Socrates tells the story of how the north wind carries Oreithyia away when she is playing with Pharmacea (229c-d) it would seem he intends to dismiss it only to reintroduce another myth at a later time. In this resemblance to a drug, can be seen Socrates' reservations about speaking and writing; for these have "the power to break in, to carry off, to seduce internally, to ravish invisibly. It is furtive force per se" (116). In its power to force discursive divergence, writing as pharmakon denotes the endless deferral of meaning in language and also the power of reversal hidden in language itself. The meaning of a text as pharmakon is ambiguous because of this hidden feature which allows it to function as poison as well as a remedy. Examples of a pharmakon could include a spell, a form of persuasion, an object of seduction, a text or anything else that has the power, e.g., writing, to make "one stray from one's general, natural, habitual paths and laws (Dissemination 70).