The Pharmakeus (chapter 5)

"Irony does not consist in the dissolution of a sophistic charm or in the dismantling of an occult substance or power through analysis or questioning. It does not consist in undoing the charlatanesque confidence of a pharmakeus from the vantage point of some obstinate instance of transparent reason or innocent logos. Socratic irony precipitates out one pharmakon by bringing it in contact with another pharmakon. Or rather, it reverses the pharmakon''s powers and turns its surface over thus taking effect, being recorded and dated, in the act of classing the pharmakon, through the fact that the pharmakon properly consists in a certain inconsistency, a certain impropriety, this nonidentity-with-itself always allowing to be turned against itself. What is at stake in this overturning is no less than science and death. Which are consigned to a single type in the structure of the pharmakon, the one and only name for that potion that must be awaited. And even in Socrates' case, deserved." (p. 121)

If logos itself is a kind of pharmakon, carrying within itself all the ambiguity of this term, sophistics and philosophy become inseparable. That is exactly what Derrida tries to show in this chapter about Socrates as a pharmacist (poisoner, magician, ensnarer, pharmakos). It is one of the words in the chain of the similar words that Derrida tries to link, "reconstuting the entire chain of significations of the pharmakon" (p. 98), in its ambivalence, as "the medium in which opposites are opposed, the movement and the play that links them among themselves, reverses them or makes one side cross over into the other (soul/body, good/evil, inside/outside, memory/forgetfulness, speech/writing, etc.) (p. 130)"1

Deconstructing the concept of logos, Derrida shows that the pivotal concepts and oppositions of Western Metaphysics are ambiguous, unequivocal and, as Derrida mentioned about Diotima's account on Eros, no logic can confine them within a noncontradictory definition. It shows that logos has something of the powers of the opposed concept
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I would like to add to this incomplete list the opposition between Apollonian and Dionysian

writing, that philosophy has something of the powers of sophistics, just as remedy has something of the powers of poison. The opposition between philosophy and sophistics is one of the constitutive oppositions of the Western philosophical tradition. Plato defined his philosophy and every true philosophy within this opposition. Plato's philosophy determines itself as dialectic against rhetoric, as truth against appearance, as rationality of intelligence against irrationality of passions, as self-knowledge against perplexity, as the true science against the mimesis and simulacrum of the poets and sophists. Again, if logos itself is a kind of pharmakon, Socrates, "he who does not write" is also a master of the pharmakon that is to say, a kind of magician, sorcerer, poisoner, impostor, ensnarer, seducer and finally, a scapegoat because of that, he deserved his hemlock. Plato's text about Marsyas' pipe witnesses that Socrates, a dialectician, who speaks in the name of science, has the other, demonic, dark irrational, Dionysian side, as opposed to his bright, rational Apollonian side (or mask?) that was considered by the historians of philosophy as his dominant feature. As such, he is a seducer, whose words are benumbing, like the words of sophists, like the venom of a snake, like the poison of pharmakon. His living dialectic numbs, paralyzes the body, that unreasonable obstacle for the real knowledge, preparing it for death, death as philosopher's business what is the purpose of philosophy itself; similarly, hemlock numbed Socrates' limbs and brought him to death. And, as Nietzsche said, that "Socrates' cure" brought to death the old Athens as well (Twilight of the Idols, The Problem of Socrates, 9). In its Dionysian frenzy, as Nietzsche used to describe philosophy exactly opposite to Socratic philosophy, dialectic dissolves the identity of conscious self, leading astray from one's selfpresence, away from the clarity of self-knowledge. (p. 76) Derrida says that pharmakon, or logos is a power of fascination that may be beneficial or maleficent (p. 75). But is Socrates' pharmakon/logos necessarily beneficial? Does it necessarily lead to truth, if sophists" indicted logos in its capacity to lie" (p. 118)? What is a difference between his logos and sophistic evil persuasive logos? Really, "how they can be distinguished" (p. 121)? Does Socrates' dialectic necessarily lead to clear-cut, noncontradictory definitions? Where are the answers to Socrates' questions? Where is truth in whose name Socrates speaks?
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Isn't philosopher, like Diotima's Eros, always needy, always lacking? In the Platonic dialogues, Socrates is one who asks, who poses questions, because, as he himself admits, he does not know the answers. He was looking for the answers within himself, but did not find them; truth was not present in himself. Socrates himself is perplexed, as Meno, the sophist, says, and "reduce others to perplexity" (p. 120). It is interesting that Socrates poses questions suggesting the answers, those who want to oppose him, are powerless. And helpless and angry in their impotence.

Bibliography: Plato's Pharmacy, in: Derrida, Jacques. Dissemination, trans. Barbara Johnson, Chicago & London: Chicago University Press, 1981.