In critical theory, Pharmakon is a concept introduced by Jacques Derrida. It is derived from the Greek source term φάρμακον (phármakon), a word that can mean either remedy, poison, or scapegoat.In his book "Plato's Pharmacy", Derrida explores the notion that writing is a pharmakon in a composite sense of these meanings as "a means of producing something". Derrida uses pharmakon to highlight the connection between its traditional meanings and the philosophical notion of indeterminacy. "[T]ranslational or philosophical efforts to favor or purge a particular signification of pharmakon [and to identify it as either "cure" or "poison"] actually do interpretive violence to what would otherwise remain undecidable." Whereas a straightforward view on Plato's treatment of writing (in Phaedrus) suggests that writing is to be rejected as strictly poisonous to the ability to think for oneself in dialogue with others (i.e. to anamnesis). Bernard Stiegler argues that "the hypomnesic appears as that which constitutes the condition of the anamnesic...