what does pharmakon mean?

Pharmakon is a Greek term that can mean remedy, poison, or scapegoat. In critical theory, Jacques Derrida introduced the concept of pharmakon to explore the connection between its traditional meanings and the philosophical notion of indeterminacy. Derrida argues that writing is a pharmakon in a composite sense of these meanings as "a means of producing something". The term has also been theorized in connection with a broader philosophy of technology, biotechnology, immunology, enhancement, and addiction. In the context of art, Adrian Mróz argues that pharmakon is any physical, mental, or behavioral object that can cut. In the context of drugs, Persson uses the several senses of pharmakon to "pursue a kind of phenomenology of drugs as embodied processes, an approach that foregrounds the productive potential of medicines". In ancient Greek, pharmakon referred to a group of meanings subtly connected to the ancient rite of purification, but transposed from the community to the body: it could refer to medicinal drugs, intoxicants, and poisons or venoms.