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On politics, irony, and Plato’s Socrates as Derrida’s pharmakon
Sharpe, Matthew
Sharpe, Matthew
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Abstract
This paper challenges the reading of Derridean deconstruction as a necessarily antiauthoritarian version of “hermeneutics as politics.” It does so by critically rereading Derrida's 1968 essay “Plato's Pharmacy.” Part 1 reconstructs Derrida's key claims in “Plato's Pharmacy,” turning on the ambiguous signifier “pharmakon” and the treatment of writing in the Phaedrus. Part 2 examines Derrida's three claims in “Plato's Pharmacy” concerning the political, putatively antiauthoritarian significance of his deconstruction of “platonism.” Part 3 contests these claims, arguing that Derrida cannot comprehend Socratic irony since he is blind to the political shaping of Plato's dialogic writing, as the artful attempt to present and inspire philosophical inquiry within the city, while avoiding the condemnation directed against Socrates by the men of Athens in 399 BCE. Finally, I argue that Derrida's indebtedness to Heidegger underlies these shortcomings in his reading of Plato.
Keywords
Date
2021
Type
Journal article
Journal
The Review of Politics
Book
Volume
83
Issue
2
Page Range
153-173
Article Number
ACU Department
School of Philosophy
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
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All rights reserved
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