Sean Burke The Death and Return of the Author : Criticism and Subjectivity in Barthes, Foucault and Derrida.

what is written, as well as what is actually spoken, can be described as ''said" (legomenon): so,
e.g., in 259e4–5 "things that are going to be said" should be read as "things that are going to be
written and/or said".'—C.J. Rowe, Plato: Phaedrus, with Translation and Commentary, op. cit.,
pp. 194–5. Cf. also p. 208; p. 211: p. 214.
74. Derrida passes over this section without citation. He concedes that Socrates is not overtly
hostile to writing at this moment, but neglects to mention that speech and writing are considered
under the same heading: 'Socrates still has a neutral attitude: writing is not in itself a shameful,
indecent, infamous (aiskhron) activity. One is dislionoured only if one writes in a dishonourable
manner. But what does it mean to write in a dishonourable manner?' (68) Rather than wait around
to answer its own question, 'Plato's Pharmacy' then proceeds to a discussion of the myth of the
cicadas.
75. In this closing section, (156–71) Derrida quotes at considerable length from the Laws,
Republic, Timaeus, and Sophist but does not see fit to return to the Phaedrus, least of to give
notice of the qualified rehabilitation of writing at 278b–d.
76. 'The best sense of play is play that is supervised and contained within the safeguards of
ethics and politics. This is play comprehended under the innocent, innocuous category of "fun".
Amusement: however far off it may be, the common translation of paidia by pastime . . . no
doubt only helps consolidate the Platonic repression of play.' (156) Robin renders
'divertissement'; in Hackforth paidia is here given as 'pastime'; Rowe translates as 'amusement';
Hamilton translates the remark as 'the literary discussion with which we have been amusing
ourselves.' See Léon Robin, Platon, Oeuvres Complêtes IV 3: Phèdre, op. cit.; C.J. Rowe, Plato:
Phaedrus, with Translation and Commentary, op. cit.; Plato, Phaedrus and Seventh and Eighth
Letters, trans. Walter Hamilton (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973).
77. Jacques Derrida, Margins—of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Brighton: Harvester, 1982), p.
316.
78. In the Euthyphro Socrates laments the fact that his logoi are mobile rather than static: 'the
rarest thing about my talent is that I am an unwilling artist, since I would rather see our arguments
stand fast and hold their ground than have the art of Daedalus plus all the wealth of Tantalus to
boot.' (Euthyphro, 11 d–e)
79. One might even suspect that a forcefield has build up around these words. Not only Derrida
but critics such as Ferrari and Burger—who present their theses in the form of running
commentaries—do not register the immense significance of this passage. Despite arguing for the
strongest ironic reading—one which sees Plato as consciously and deliberately defending his
practice of philosophical writing—Burger applies these words self-reflexively and thus does not
register their import for the practice of writing in general (Ronna Burger, Plato's Phaedrus, pp.
105–6). Even Ferrari says little more of it beyond (rightly) noting: 'the dangers of the written word
are defused. One who is not reliant on the written word for understanding, who has no false
expectations of it, and who is able to supplement its inadequacies in speech may write about
what matters to him . . . and yet merit the title "philosopher"'—G.R.F. Ferrari, Listening to the
Cicadas, op. cit pp. 205–6.
80. Aristotle, De Sophisticis Elenchis, trans. W.A. Pickard-Cambridge in W.D. Ross, ed., The
Works of Aristotle, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1928), 171b35–172a2; 172a23–33.
81. See Martin Elsky, Authorising Words: Speech, Writing, and Print in the English Renaissance
(Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1989), pp. 8–34. Elsky's landmark study exhibits
deep scepticism toward Derrida's deconstruction of logocentrism: 'the deconstructive certification
that Renaissance language theory, is incoherent and its attendant claim that speech is reducible
to writing and writing to speech glosses over phenomena of major importance in the history of
language and literature . . . The deconstructive attempt to bury these distinctions beneath
assertions of incoherence would render invisible concepts of great historical—and current—
interest.' (ibid p. 3)
82. Ibid., p.33. Elsky also highlights those moments in the Renaissance when writing is elevated
above speech, as in the (heterogeneous) instances of Francis Bacon and George Herbert (ibid.,
pp. 110–208).
83. William of Ockham, Ockham's Theory of terms: Part I of the Summa Logicae, trans. Michael
J. Loux (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1974), p.9.
84. Derrida even cites the relevant lines of the discredited Second Letter, although he does so