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

questioning or exposition'. (Phaedrus, 277e) It is not speech qua speech that is at issue but a
particular form of dialogic discourse, one whose terms the 'spoken' can transgress as readily as
the 'written'. The contest of 'speech' and 'writing' is not here conducted through the metaphysical
category of 'presence'. Rather it is addressed to ethical and epistemological issues which split the
notion of speech into responsible, truth-seeking dialogue on the one hand, and dogmatising
monologism on the other. Naturally it will be first and foremost a matter of the validity of what is
said or written; of whether Plato considers the communication to be a truthful discourse (alethinos
logos). Where the reception of logoi is concerned, it is not the fact of speech itself but the
presentation of a discourse within a pedagogic framework of question-and-answer that
determines its value. Thus when Derrida, in a later work, describes idealised speech as
embodying the speaker's 'absolutely current and present intention or attention, the plenitude of
his meaning', 77 he is superimposing a metaphysics of intention on a Platonic corpus which
shows the deepest suspicion toward the adequacy of any natural language—written or spoken—
to intention, consciousness or meaning. The very insistence on question-and-answer derives
from Plato's conviction that spoken discourse cannot be transparent to intention. The Cratylus
would have something to say on this point, and in the Euthyphro, the logoi run off like the statues
of Daedalus (Euthyphro, 11c–d).78 So far from speech housing a conscious, private and selfpresent
intuition of the speaker's, it is the public processing of discourse rather than any
supposed coincidence of thought and expression that dictates the Phaedrus's preference for a
dialectical method which can select the recipients of its discourse or silence itself when the
audience seems inappropriate.
The conjunction of speech and writing under a negative aspect at 277d–e is followed by a
recapitulation in which the critique of writing is qualified:
SOCRATES: Do you now go and . . . deliver a message, first to Lysias and all other composers
of discourses (logoi), secondly to Homer and all others who have written poetry whether to be
read or sung, and thirdly to Solon and all such as are authors of political compositions under the
name of laws—to wit, that if any of them has done his work with a knowledge of the truth, can
defend his statements when challenged, and can demonstrate the inferiority of his writings out of
his own mouth, he ought not to be designated by a name drawn from those writings, but by one
that indicates his serious pursuit.
PHAEDRUS: Then what names would you assign him?
SOCRATES: To call him wise, Phaedrus, would, I think, be going too far; the epithet is proper
only to a god. A name that would fit him better, and have more seemliness, would be 'lover of
wisdom', or something similar. (Phaedrus, 278b–d) 79
When orally supplemented, writing is acceptable (albeit in an inferior case): if its author answers
lucidly to philosophy, he answers to the name of philosopher. To be sure, the 'writing' Socrates
describes above is very far from the 'pathbreaking writing' Derrida promotes. Writing is both
contained and constrained by dialectical philosophy; always under sub poena, the written word
awaits favourable judgement from the dialectical court before it may travel. Like dialogic speech,
it cannot disseminate, move beyond the watch of philosophy. Nor can it treat itself as a fixed or
finished entity but must ever adapt and renew itself as spoken supplement and in accordance
with the demands of Socratic interrogation.
Nonetheless, all such objections can be met whilst acknowledging that writing is here tolerated in
a manner one would never suspect were 'Plato's Pharmacy' the window through which the
Phaedrus was perceived. Only just indicted on the general ground of an unresponsiveness that
covers much of that which is spoken, writing is never for a moment interdicted in this movement.
Writing can participate in a 'serious' pursuit (and here the potential relevance of this passage to
Derrida's meditation on 'play' should be noted) if only insofar as the (written) critique of writing is
serious. More importantly, the fact that we do not find here a 'Plato who maintains both the
exteriority of writing and its power of maleficient penetration, its ability to affect or infect what lies
deepest inside' (110) authorises us in asking why Derrida does not attend to a closing statement
which bears upon all the themes of 'Plato's Pharmacy'.
'Plato's Pharmacy' has set out to discover 'new chords, new concordances . . . in minutely
fashioned counterpoint . . . a more secret organisation of themes, of names, of words'. (67) A
reading with such an emphasis on 'newness', on revelation, can have no room for an explicit
drawing-together of speech and writing. By neglecting to cite such passages (258b–d; 278b–d),