Phrase: "It discovers new chords, new concordances; it surprises them in minutely fashioned counterpoint..."

"It discovers new chords, new concordances; it surprises them in minutely fashioned counterpoint..." (p. 67)

Derrida uses Plato's Phaedrus to exemplify his "hypothesis of a rigorous, sure, and subtle form" in Plato's Pharmacy. Derrida has a thorough list of qualifications for good writing in the following lines; it must be "patiently interlacing the arguments" and must be filled with "suppleness, irony, and discretion." Derrida wants the writer to get his point across and to use irony to make opposing viewpoints look foolish, but he wants the writer to be sure to cover all his bases, and on top of that he has to tie the whole thing together, even throwing in a "more secret organization of themes, of names, of words." He is confident that Phaedrus is very good writing and illustrates how widely woven Plato's themes are in the work. Writing that Derrida would consider perfect under his hypothesis would surely cause instant death to a reader.