pharmakon

In fact long before Fleming’s eureka moment of 1928 regarding the curative powers of bacteria, an ambiguity had been signaled in the word pharmakon in Greek, which translates as both poison and cure.

BREAKFAST WITH SOCRATES ROBERT ROWLAND SMITH 2010

In fact long before Fleming’s eureka moment of 1928 regarding the curative powers of bacteria, an ambiguity had been signaled in the word pharmakon in Greek, which translates as both poison and cure.

BREAKFAST WITH SOCRATES ROBERT ROWLAND SMITH 2010

It is related to the word pharmakon which means both medicine and poison and from which we get "pharmacy" and "pharmaceutical."

FJ's Blog 2009

The ambiguity of the word pharmakon reveals two things, the first being the paradoxical nature of punishment as viewed from the Athenian perspective.

FJ's Blog 2009

The word "pharmakon" meant both the disease and its cure to the ancient Greeks.

Private Equity's 2008

Elsewhere in the Book of Life, Ficino associates purple with a safer, diluted form of Saturn's humor that, like the influence of Mars, may be used as a homeopathic pharmakon. 13 To assist in contemplation and judgment, Ficino recommends that these colors be worn as clothing and applied in architectural ornament.

Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008

Mesmer's crisis is in effect a pharmakon, the unleashing of a certain violence and disorder in the psyche — hence the revolutionary pathogens with which his work was associated.

'The Abyss of the Past': Psychoanalysis in Schelling's Ages of the World (1815) 2008

'Pharmaceutical' comes from the Greek word, 'pharmakon' which means 'remedy and poison' and therein lays the rub.

Christina Pirello: Why Society Works Better When We're Afraid and Fat 2009

In any case, Plato avoids using a specific term: in the Phaedo, he always calls Socrates 'poison simply to pharmakon, the "drug', the "poison" or the "medicine '.

'The Death of Socrates' 2007

Reminds me of one of the most famous auto-antonyms, the Greek pharmakon, made famous by Derrida which means both remedy and poison.

languagehat.com: ODI ET AMO. 2005