Plato does not believe that "Pharmakon" does not accurately translate words or terminology into another language. Plato favors a logic that "does not tolerate such passages between the opposing senses of he same word," that a passage could mean something different than its original meaning, thus, "all translations produce on the Pharmakon an effect of analysis." (p 1716) Interpreting passages that have been translated, implies that unless the reader is versed in the language in which the passage was originally written, can interpret the passage incorrectly because he has not the knowledge of the original meaning and therefore, can take the passage out of context (misinterpret it.) The writing then cannot be interpreted neither in its context or can one entertain the passage as is; it's meaning is altered. Thus, the translation can neither be accepted or rejected. "Such an interpretative translation is thus violent ad it is impotent: it destroys the Pharmakon but at the same time forbids access to it, leaving it untouched in its reserve." (1716)
The contradiction presented to the reader is no less imperative for the writer. "What law governs this 'contradiction,' this opposition to itself of what is said against writing, of a dictum that pronounces itself against itself as soon as it finds its way into writing, as soon as it writes down its self-identity and carries away what is proper to it against this ground of writing." Dialectics, protected by truth and separate from linguistics "can only be satisfied by the presence of the eidos, which is here both the signified and the referent: the thing itself" (p 1731) suggesting that an interpreted passage will not contain the same meaning nor have the same effect as when read in its original form, leading to interpreting non-truths. Plato believes the truth and non-truth "are both species of repetition." This repetition is the "very movement of non-truth: the presence of what gets lost, disperses itself, multiplies itself through mneme, logos, and phone" but it also leads one to discovering the truth for himself. (p 1733) Truths reveal themselves to the reader as it pertains to the reader. Suggesting meaning is derived at when a truth 'speaks' to a reader; as if the message is intended for this particular reader and not that reader. Each reader arrives at the truth in his own way -"The sort that goes together with knowledge, and is written in the soul of the learner, that can defend itself, and know to whom it should speak and to whom it should say nothing." (p 1733).
Source: Cain, Finke, Johnson, Leitch, McGowan, Sharpley-Whiting, and Williams. The Norton
Anthology of Theory & Criticism. 2nd Ed. Published by WW Norton and Company, New
York/London. 2010.