Download or read book Irony in the Work of Philosophy written by Claire Colebrook and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an era that proclaims itself postironic, the question and problem of irony are of more interest than ever. In this compelling inquiry, Claire Colebrook first takes up all the majorøfigures in post-Cartesian philosophy on the subject of irony: Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche. She similarly examines the modern thinkers in the Anglo-Saxon tradition: Rorty, Searle, and de Man. She then engages in an analysis of the Continental canon and the ironic dimension that marks contemporary philosophy. Beyond the question of irony, Colebrook treats the presence of irony in the history of philosophy and those points of overlap between nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature and philosophy. Ultimately, she extends what has belonged primarily to the domain of literature into a world of concepts.
Download or read book Ironic Life written by Richard J. Bernstein and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Just as philosophy begins with doubt, so also a life that may be called human begins with irony" so wrote Kierkegaard. While we commonly think of irony as a figure of speech where someone says one thing and means the opposite, the concept of irony has long played a more fundamental role in the tradition of philosophy, a role that goes back to Socrates Ð the originator and exemplar of the urbane ironic life. But what precisely is Socratic irony and what relevance, if any, does it have for us today? Bernstein begins his inquiry with a critical examination of the work of two contemporary philosophers for whom irony is vital: Jonathan Lear and Richard Rorty. Despite their sharp differences, Bernstein argues that they complement one other, each exploring different aspects of ironic life. In the background of Lear’s and Rorty’s accounts stand the two great ironists: Socrates and Kierkegaard. Focusing on the competing interpretations of Socratic irony by Gregory Vlastos and Alexander Nehamas, Bernstein shows how they further develop our understanding of irony as a form of life and as an art of living. Bernstein also develops a distinctive interpretation of Kierkegaard’s famous claim that a life that may be called human begins with irony. Bernstein weaves together the insights of these thinkers to show how each contributes to a richer understanding of ironic life. He also argues that the emphasis on irony helps to restore the balance between two different philosophical traditions philosophy as a theoretical discipline concerned with getting things right and philosophy as a practical discipline that shapes how we ought to live our lives.
Download or read book Kierkegaard and the Art of Irony written by Roy Martinez and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2001 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No Marketing Blurb
Download or read book Contingency Irony and Solidarity written by Richard Rorty and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1989-02-24 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this 1989 book Rorty argues that thinkers such as Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein have enabled societies to see themselves as historical contingencies, rather than as expressions of underlying, ahistorical human nature or as realizations of suprahistorical goals. This ironic perspective on the human condition is valuable on a private level, although it cannot advance the social or political goals of liberalism. In fact Rorty believes that it is literature not philosophy that can do this, by promoting a genuine sense of human solidarity. A truly liberal culture, acutely aware of its own historical contingency, would fuse the private, individual freedom of the ironic, philosophical perspective with the public project of human solidarity as it is engendered through the insights and sensibilities of great writers. The book has a characteristically wide range of reference from philosophy through social theory to literary criticism. It confirms Rorty's status as a uniquely subtle theorist, whose writing will prove absorbing to academic and nonacademic readers alike.
Download or read book The Irony of Heidegger written by Andrew Haas and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Case for Irony written by Jonathan Lear and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-24 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2001, Vanity Fair declared that the Age of Irony was over. Joan Didion has lamented that the United States in the era of Barack Obama has become an "irony-free zone." Jonathan Lear in his 2006 book Radical Hope looked into America’s heart to ask how might we dispose ourselves if we came to feel our way of life was coming to an end. Here, he mobilizes a squad of philosophers and a psychoanalyst to once again forge a radical way forward, by arguing that no genuinely human life is possible without irony. Becoming human should not be taken for granted, Lear writes. It is something we accomplish, something we get the hang of, and like Kierkegaard and Plato, Lear claims that irony is one of the essential tools we use to do this. For Lear and the participants in his Socratic dialogue, irony is not about being cool and detached like a player in a Woody Allen film. That, as Johannes Climacus, one of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous authors, puts it, “is something only assistant professors assume.” Instead, it is a renewed commitment to living seriously, to experiencing every disruption that shakes us out of our habitual ways of tuning out of life, with all its vicissitudes. While many over the centuries have argued differently, Lear claims that our feelings and desires tend toward order, a structure that irony shakes us into seeing. Lear’s exchanges with his interlocutors strengthen his claims, while his experiences as a practicing psychoanalyst bring an emotionally gripping dimension to what is at stake—the psychic costs and benefits of living with irony.
Download or read book Ironic Life written by Richard J. Bernstein and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-09-07 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Just as philosophy begins with doubt, so also a life that may be called human begins with irony" so wrote Kierkegaard. While we commonly think of irony as a figure of speech where someone says one thing and means the opposite, the concept of irony has long played a more fundamental role in the tradition of philosophy, a role that goes back to Socrates Ð the originator and exemplar of the urbane ironic life. But what precisely is Socratic irony and what relevance, if any, does it have for us today? Bernstein begins his inquiry with a critical examination of the work of two contemporary philosophers for whom irony is vital: Jonathan Lear and Richard Rorty. Despite their sharp differences, Bernstein argues that they complement one other, each exploring different aspects of ironic life. In the background of Lear’s and Rorty’s accounts stand the two great ironists: Socrates and Kierkegaard. Focusing on the competing interpretations of Socratic irony by Gregory Vlastos and Alexander Nehamas, Bernstein shows how they further develop our understanding of irony as a form of life and as an art of living. Bernstein also develops a distinctive interpretation of Kierkegaard’s famous claim that a life that may be called human begins with irony. Bernstein weaves together the insights of these thinkers to show how each contributes to a richer understanding of ironic life. He also argues that the emphasis on irony helps to restore the balance between two different philosophical traditions philosophy as a theoretical discipline concerned with getting things right and philosophy as a practical discipline that shapes how we ought to live our lives.
Download or read book Truth and Irony written by Terence J. Martin and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2015-12-15 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tapping into selected works of Erasmus of Rotterdam, this book offers a series of philosophical meditations designed to retrieve and deploy a distinctively Erasmian manner of thinking - one that is capacious in its perception, agile in its judgments, and unsettling in its irony. In purpose, it takes a philosophical route, addressing perennial questions of self-knowledge - what we can know and how best to communicate what we take to be true, what we ought to do or how we should live, and what we might hope for or what would offer us fulfilment. In method, however, this work taps into the various strategies of irony at play in the works of Erasmus, looking for guidance in handling these age-old questions. What readers will find in Erasmus is a knack for playfully reversing appearances and realities, a penchant for pushing disturbing questions relentlessly to the limit, and a skill for juxtaposing oddly matched opposites. Again and again, Erasmus presses readers to rethink these fundamental questions with dexterity and nuance, ever ready to appreciate the surprising and unsettling upshot of ironic insight.
Download or read book Therapeutic Action written by Jonathan Lear and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that properly understood, irony plays a crucial role in therapeutic action. It is written as an invitation to clinicians to renew their own engagement with the fundamental concepts of their practice. It investigates the concepts of subjectivity and objectivity that are appropriate for psychoanalysts, the concept of internalisation and of transference. It will be of interest to anyone concerned with the central concepts of psychoanalysis.
Download or read book Kierkegaard s Writings written by Søren Kierkegaard and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 652 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Ironic Defense of Socrates written by David M. Leibowitz and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-07-12 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a controversial interpretation of Plato's Apology of Socrates. By paying unusually close attention to what Socrates indicates about the meaning and extent of his irony, David Leibowitz arrives at unconventional conclusions about Socrates' teaching on virtue, politics, and the gods; the significance of his famous turn from natural philosophy to political philosophy; and the purpose of his insolent 'defense speech'. Leibowitz shows that Socrates is not just a colorful and quirky figure from the distant past but an unrivaled guide to the good life - the thoughtful life - who is as relevant today as in ancient Athens. On the basis of his unconventional understanding of the dialogue as a whole, and of the Delphic oracle story in particular, Leibowitz shows that the Apology is the key to the Platonic corpus, indicating how many of the disparate themes and apparently contradictory conclusions of the other dialogues fit together.
Download or read book Irony and Idealism written by Fred Rush and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-22 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Irony and Idealism investigates the historical and conceptual structure of the development of a philosophically distinctive conception of irony in early- to mid-nineteenth century European philosophy. The principal figures treated are the romantic thinkers Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis, Hegel, and Kierkegaard. Fred Rush argues that the development of philosophical irony in this historical period is best understood as providing a way forward in philosophy in the wake of Kant and Jacobi that is discrete from, and many times opposed to, German idealism. Irony and Idealism argues, against the grain of received opinion, that among the German romantics Schlegel's conception of irony is superior to similar ideas found in Novalis. It also presents a sustained argument showing that historical reconsideration of Schlegel has been hampered by contestable Hegelian assumptions concerning the conceptual viability of romantic irony and by the misinterpretation of what the romantics mean by 'the absolute.' Rush argues that this is primarily a social-ontological term and not, as is often supposed, a metaphysical concept. Kierkegaard, although critical of the romantic conception, deploys his own adaptation of it in his criticism of Hegel, continuing, and in a way completing, the arc of irony through nineteenth-century philosophy. The book concludes by offering suggestions meant to guide contemporary reconsideration of Schlegel's and Kierkegaard's views on the philosophical significance of irony.
Download or read book The Critical Mythology of Irony written by Joseph A. Dane and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ambitious theoretical work that ranges from the age of Socrates to the late twentieth century, this book traces the development of the concepts of irony within the history of Western literary criticism. Its purpose is not to promote a universal definition of irony, whether traditional or revisionist, but to examine how such definitions were created in critical history and what their use and invocation imply. Joseph A. Dane argues that the diverse, supposed forms of irony--Socratic, rhetorical, romantic, dramatic, to name a few--are not so much literary elements embedded in texts, awaiting discovery by critics, as they are notions used by critics of different eras and persuasions to manipulate those texts in various, often self-serving ways. The history of irony, Dane suggests, runs parallel to the history of criticism, and the changing definitions of irony reflect the changing ways in which readers and critics have defined their own roles in relation to literature. Probing and provocative, The Critical Mythology of Irony will appeal to a broad spectrum of critics and scholars, particularly those concerned with the historical basis of critical language and its political and educational implications.
Download or read book Eros and Irony written by David L. Hall and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1983-06-30 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The conception of culture and philosophy’s role within it developed in this work permits interesting formulations of a number of important issues and concepts: the relations between the utopian and utilitarian functions of philosophic theory; the character of the aesthetic and mystical sensibilities; the meaning and function of metaphor and of irony; the value of theoretical consensus; the nature of philosophic communication; and the distinctive relation of Plato and Socrates as a model for philosophic activity.” — David L. Hall With Eros and Irony, David Hall re-evaluates the cultural role of philosophy, probing to the very heart of questions in epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of culture. Two central arguments structure the book: the first is that in modern culture the autonomy of the aesthetic and religious sensibilities has been seriously qualified by an overemphasis on narrowly rational moral interests. The second is that philosophic activity must be construed in terms of two conflicting elements: the desire for completeness of understanding, and the failure to achieve such understanding. Hall provides a historical survey of philosophic thought, encompassing Plato, Kant, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Whitehead. He also avails himself of sources outside of philosophy, in such diverse fields as poetry, psychology, physics, and Eastern religion, to create a work that not only addresses key issues in philosophy, but also has deep implications for science, art, religion, morality, and cultural self-understanding.
Download or read book Irony written by Claire Colebrook and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Table of contents
Download or read book Irony on Occasion written by Kevin Newmark and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is it about irony - as an object of serious philosophical reflection and a literary technique of considerable elasticity - that makes it an occasion for endless critical debate? This book responds to that question by focusing on several key moments in German romanticism and its afterlife in twentieth-century French thought and writing. Rather than provide a history of irony, it examines particular occasions of ironic disruption, thus offering an alternative model for conceiving of historical occurrences and their potential for acquiring meaning.
Download or read book The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates written by Søren Kierkegaard and published by Kierkegaard's Writings (Paperb. This book was released on 1992-01 with total page 634 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A work that "not only treats of irony but is irony," wrote a contemporary reviewer of The Concept of Irony, with Continual Reference to Socrates. Presented here with Kierkegaard's notes of the celebrated Berlin lectures on "positive philosophy" by F.W.J. Schelling, the book is a seedbed of Kierkegaard's subsequent work, both stylistically and thematically. Part One concentrates on Socrates, the master ironist, as interpreted by Xenophon, Plato, and Aristophanes, with a word on Hegel and Hegelian categories. Part Two is a more synoptic discussion of the concept of irony in Kierkegaard's categories, with examples from other philosophers and with particular attention given to A. W. Schlegel's novel Lucinde as an epitome of romantic irony. The Concept of Irony and the Notes of Schelling's Berlin Lectures belong to the momentous year 1841, which included not only the completion of Kierkegaard's university work and his sojourn in Berlin, but also the end of his engagement to Regine Olsen and the initial writing of Either/Or.
