https://www.reddit.com/r/CriticalTheory/comments/1i5zhpg/platos_pharmacy_reading_group_day_1/
created by pitheysporkapologist on 20/01/2025 at 20:02 UTC
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https://youtu.be/HMwJuOwg7P8[1][2]
1: https://youtu.be/HMwJuOwg7P8
2: https://youtu.be/HMwJuOwg7P8
In this reading-group session, participants take a deep dive into Derrida’s essay **“Plato’s Pharmacy,”** which unpacks the infamous critique of writing in Plato’s *Phaedrus*. Derrida seizes on the Greek word ***pharmakon***—simultaneously meaning cure, poison, and remedy—to show how Plato’s dialogue both condemns and depends on writing. Far from a simple dismissal of writing as secondary to speech, Derrida’s reading emphasizes how writing in fact destabilizes the familiar hierarchy—speech might appear “closer” to truth or presence, yet Plato cannot do without writing’s disruptive power.
The group teases out how Derrida links **reading** with **writing**, insisting that to read is inevitably to “embroider,” add, and rewrite. In other words, one never approaches a text as a pure, passive receiver: every act of interpretation is already another form of composition. They also explore how Derrida connects Plato’s treatment of writing to broader questions about **metaphysics of presence**, irony, and self-knowledge, revealing that the dialogue’s structure—often dismissed by classicists as haphazard—secretly revolves around this tension between the necessity and danger of writing. Along the way, the discussion touches on Derrida’s broader deconstructive motifs: the critique of “logocentrism,” the deferral of meaning (*différance*), and the impossibility of securing a stable origin. Ultimately, the session shows how *Plato’s Pharmacy* remains a key text for anyone probing the intricate interplay of language, philosophy, and the written mark.
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