Thoroughly postmodern Pynchon

[Terrance]

Dave Monroe wrote:
> 
> http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/english/courses/60A/handouts/pharmacy.html
> 
> I'd recommend that last one for anybody with questions
> about recent invocations of Derrida, deconstruction
> here ...

"A brief section, concluding and summarizing the first four
sections of the essay,
"The Pharmakeus" contains some very nice statements,
including the assertion that
Plato is the "spitting image" of the sophists (117). "


This is very odd claim. How is it that Plato is the
"spitting image" of the Sophists? 
I would say that Derrida shares more with the Sophists than
Plato. 


1. Take Protagoras, who says, "Man is the measure of all
things." Now, as we know, what we know of the Sophists comes
to us mostly through Plato and Aristotle. Both agree that in
this statement Protagoras means that each man, each
individual is the measure of all things. So, in Theaetus
Socrates engages Protagoras and asks about the wind.
Perhaps, we should not trust Plato, he never seems very
interested in getting the philosophy or sophistry of the
Socratic interlocutors correct, but Aristotle is very
careful to represent the history of philosophy. Aristotle's,
and thus Plato's representation of Protagoras is further
confirmed by Sextus Empiricus, who claims that Protagoras,
"posits only what appears to each individual, and thus he
introduces relativity." 

This might be one example of an "Objective" philosopher
(Derrida) misreading; confusing what for the Sophists is a
Personal Perspective with what is for the Platonists, not
relativistic one, but a revelatory one.