Say what you like about Socrates, but at least he didn't take any shit from poets.
This - of all things - was recently said to me - of all people (and in all seriousness) - by someone who really should have known better before offering not only a highly dubious defense of the spoken word, but what has become after Derrida a philosophically untenable privileging of the latter over the written text.
Who would have imagined that phonocentrism would still be making its voice heard in the digital age?
But, unfortunately, it is. And so we must return to ancient Greece once more and re-examine the Socratic prejudice against writing, which is conceived as a pharmakon - i.e., as a type of drug that has both beneficial and potentially lethal aspects.
According to Socrates, the gift of writing was one of many given by the Egyptian inventor-deity Theuth to the god-king Thamus. Theuth informs the latter that writing is useful as a powerful aide-memoire, but Thamus protests that its effect is likely to be quite the opposite; that whilst it might superficially remind people of the truth, it will not help them to genuinely remember and to know the truth as it essentially resides within the soul. In other words, writing creates the appearance or illusion of wisdom, but not the reality. The gift is thus returned and determined to be a grave danger rather than a great blessing (a poison, rather than a pleasure).
Developing this theme, Socrates tells his young companion, Phaedrus, that a written text is not to be trusted because, unlike an actual speaker, it lacks living, breathing presence and cannot answer questions or defend itself. A true lover of wisdom will always wish to address an audience in person and have his words heard directly by the ears of his listeners, rather than make use of the external marks of writing to be seen by the eyes of unknown (and perhaps unworthy) readers in private. Or, if a philosopher does succumb to the temptation to inscribe his thoughts, he will nevertheless be ready and willing to defend them in discussion with others; affirming his paternity or authorship of the text whilst at the same time having the decency to concede that his writings are derivative and of little value in comparison to his spoken words.
Derrida would have none of this Ideal nonsense and he rejects the myth of presence and the privileging of the voice and ear over the hand and eye. His reading of the Phaedrus is exemplary I think - despite predictable objections coming from some quarters. Without either agreeing or disagreeing with the arguments put forward by Socrates, Derrida exposes their gaps and instabilities, deconstructing the very logic upon which the Socratic method is founded. In other words, Derrida shows how Plato's attempt to casually insert writing into a system of metaphysical dualism fails because writing's status as a pharmakon means it cannot be fixed or stabilized; rather, it remains a play of possibilities that moves in, out, and across all oppositions slowly but surely infecting or polluting the entire system.
In the end, suggests Derrida, if you wish to understand language, then you need to acknowledge that it rests upon a model of arche-writing - and not the spoken word. This is not to advance an empirical assertion to the effect that writing emerged chronologically earlier than speech. That would be silly and factually incorrect. But writing is not secondary nor some kind of parasitic supplement to speech.
And the poet is not simply a poor relation to the philosopher ...
Who would have imagined that phonocentrism would still be making its voice heard in the digital age?
But, unfortunately, it is. And so we must return to ancient Greece once more and re-examine the Socratic prejudice against writing, which is conceived as a pharmakon - i.e., as a type of drug that has both beneficial and potentially lethal aspects.
According to Socrates, the gift of writing was one of many given by the Egyptian inventor-deity Theuth to the god-king Thamus. Theuth informs the latter that writing is useful as a powerful aide-memoire, but Thamus protests that its effect is likely to be quite the opposite; that whilst it might superficially remind people of the truth, it will not help them to genuinely remember and to know the truth as it essentially resides within the soul. In other words, writing creates the appearance or illusion of wisdom, but not the reality. The gift is thus returned and determined to be a grave danger rather than a great blessing (a poison, rather than a pleasure).
Developing this theme, Socrates tells his young companion, Phaedrus, that a written text is not to be trusted because, unlike an actual speaker, it lacks living, breathing presence and cannot answer questions or defend itself. A true lover of wisdom will always wish to address an audience in person and have his words heard directly by the ears of his listeners, rather than make use of the external marks of writing to be seen by the eyes of unknown (and perhaps unworthy) readers in private. Or, if a philosopher does succumb to the temptation to inscribe his thoughts, he will nevertheless be ready and willing to defend them in discussion with others; affirming his paternity or authorship of the text whilst at the same time having the decency to concede that his writings are derivative and of little value in comparison to his spoken words.
Derrida would have none of this Ideal nonsense and he rejects the myth of presence and the privileging of the voice and ear over the hand and eye. His reading of the Phaedrus is exemplary I think - despite predictable objections coming from some quarters. Without either agreeing or disagreeing with the arguments put forward by Socrates, Derrida exposes their gaps and instabilities, deconstructing the very logic upon which the Socratic method is founded. In other words, Derrida shows how Plato's attempt to casually insert writing into a system of metaphysical dualism fails because writing's status as a pharmakon means it cannot be fixed or stabilized; rather, it remains a play of possibilities that moves in, out, and across all oppositions slowly but surely infecting or polluting the entire system.
In the end, suggests Derrida, if you wish to understand language, then you need to acknowledge that it rests upon a model of arche-writing - and not the spoken word. This is not to advance an empirical assertion to the effect that writing emerged chronologically earlier than speech. That would be silly and factually incorrect. But writing is not secondary nor some kind of parasitic supplement to speech.
And the poet is not simply a poor relation to the philosopher ...
