Abstract

This chapter will make ample use of Derrida's self‐analysis in “We Other Greeks,” especially as concerns the important role played by what might be called “the question of inclusion and exclusion” in Derrida's work on the Greeks. But it will then go on to make a claim that Derrida would have no doubt hesitated to grant, namely, that among all of Derrida's engagements with the Ancient Philosophy a single figure, Plato, and a single dialogue of Plato's, the Phaedrus, indeed a single scene within that dialogue–Socrates’ critique of writing – played a central and unparalleled role in Derrida's work from the beginning right up until the end. The chapter shows this by looking not so much at the essay in which Derrida treats this scene in detail, his essay “Plato's Pharmacy,” but at Derrida's other works from around the same time and then at some of his very last publications.