Movatterモバイル変換

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark  

No categories

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark  

No categories

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark  

The Full Bayesian Significance Test (FBST) for precise hypotheses is presented, with some applications relevant to reliability theory. The FBST is an alternative to significance tests or, equivalently, to p-ualue.s. In the FBST we compute the evidence of the precise hypothesis. This evidence is the probability of the complement of a credible set "tangent" to the sub-manifold (of the para,rreter space) that defines the null hypothesis. We use the FBST in an application requiring a quality control of used components, based (...) on remaining life statistics. (shrink)

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

Irony is acknowledged to be usually critical: the ironic speaker tends to exhibit an apparent positive attitude in order to communicate a negative valuation. The reverse is considered to be also possible though: the ironic speaker can praise by apparent blaming, although it seldom happens. This unbalance between the two sorts of ironic examples is the so-called asymmetry issue ofirony. Here I shall deny the possibility of being ironic without criticizing — hence the asymmetry issue is an (...) illusion. By claiming thatirony is always critical I suggest an even stronger claim: criticism is what distinguishesirony from the similar phenomenon of metaphor. (shrink)

Direct download(3 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   13 citations  

Contrairement à l’ironie polémique et insidieuse des Sophistes, celle de Socrate est plutôt interrogeante, désirante et ex-centrique, toujours en quête de connaissance vraie. Le fameux «je sais que je ne sais rien» devient chez lui un outil de défigement de la pensée prisonnière des «systèmes compacts», mais, aussi le meilleur remède contre les pseudo-vérités religieuses et idéologiques.

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark  

This paper argues that we need to re-think the semantics/pragmatics distinction in the light of new evidence from embedding ofirony. This raises a new version of the old problem of ‘embedded implicatures’. I argue that embeddedirony isn’t fully explained by solutions proposed for other embedded implicatures. I first consider two strategies: weak pragmatics and strong pragmatics. These explain embeddedirony as truth-conditional content. However, by trying to shoehornirony into said-content, they raise problems of (...) their own. I conclude by considering how a modified Gricean model can explain thatirony embeds qua implicature. This leads us to prefer a local implicature model. This has important consequences for how we draw the semantics/pragmatics distinction. (shrink)

Direct download(7 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   4 citations  

Nature ofirony -- Sarcasm -- Impersonalirony -- Self-disparagingirony -- Ingenuirony --Irony of self-betrayal --Irony of simple incongruity -- Dramaticirony -- Generalirony -- Romanticirony.

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark  

Direct download(4 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

Là où Françoise Sagan a pu dire que l'humour était la politesse du désespoir, on peut avancer que l'ironie est quant à elle l'élégance du nihilisme. II s'agit d'interroger le nouage étonnamment synchronisé du surgissement d'une démocratisation de la forme ironique avec l'instauration du nihilisme de masse de la marchandise de divertissement. Nous croyons montrer que nous ne sommes pas dupes, mais c'est sans doute là que réside le noyau même de la duperie : nous consommons, en montrant sans cesse (...) n'être pas dupes, d'horribles émissions télévisées, des marchandises ineptes, des informations débiles, une presse régressive, etc. : nous passons notre temps à ça, en feignant n'en être pas dupes, ce qui est la plus sûre manière de l'être totalement. (shrink)

No categories

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark  

Verbalirony constitutes a rough class of indirect intentional communication involving a complex interaction of language-specific and communication-general phenomena. Conversationalists use verbalirony in conjunction with paralinguistic signals such as speech prosody. Researchers examining acoustic features of speech communication usually focus on how prosodic information relates to the surface structure of utterances, and often ignore prosodic phenomena associated with implied meaning. In the case of verbalirony, there exists some debate concerning how these prosodic features manifest themselves (...) in conversation. A form-function approach can provide a valuable tool for understanding speakers' varied vocal strategies in this domain. Here I describe several ways conversationalists employ prosodic contrasts, laughter, and other speech characteristics in their attempts to communicate effectively and efficiently. The presented examples, culled from spontaneous conversation recordings, reveal just a small sample of the enormous variation in delivery styles speakers adopt when communicating with ironic language. (shrink)

Direct download(4 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   5 citations  

Behler discusses the current state of thought on modernity and postmodernity, detailing the intellectual problems to be faced and examining the positions of such central figures in the debate as Lyotard, Habermas, Rorty, and Derrida. He finds that beyond the "limits of communication," further discussion must be carried out throughirony. The historical rise of the concept of modernity is examined through discussions of the querelle des anciens et des modernes as a break with classical tradition, and on the (...) theoretical writings of de Stael, the English romantics, and the great German romantics Schlegel, Hegel, and Nietzsche. The growth of the concept ofirony from a formal rhetorical term to a mode of indirectness that comes to characterize thought and discourse generally is then examined from Plato and Socrates to Nietzsche, who avoided the term "irony" but used it in his cetnral concept of the mask. (shrink)

No categories

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark   7 citations  

Irony and sarcasm are two quite different, sometimes morally dubious, linguistic tropes. We can draw a distinction between them if we identifyirony as a speech act that calls what is bad good and, correspondingly, sarcasm calls good bad. This allows us to ask, which one is morally worse. My argument is based on the idea that the speaker can legitimately bypass what is good and call it bad, which is to say that she may literally mean what (...) she says. This is not true of the opposite case: one cannot bypass what is bad and, therefore, she paradoxically does not mean what she says. In other words,irony is a morally less guilty trope. What is bad has its faults and thus it can be ironized; what is good is without blemish and thus it is difficult to know how it could be called bad. Also,irony can be freely intended, or verbal, or it can be situational in social context. I also discuss dramaticirony in Classical context. Sarcasm does not allow such complexity. Instead, we speak of cynicism and even nihilism as moral attitudes that accompany sarcasm and give it its typical force; or sarcasm may lead to cynicism and nihilism, that is, to the denial of values.Irony does not entail any corresponding attitudes or moral positions. This paper is a philosophical contribution to the ethics of communication and language. (shrink)

No categories

Direct download(3 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   2 citations  

This book examines the history of the concept ofirony from the first appearance of?eironeia? in Plato to the modern era. It isolates and discusses the basic features ofirony and the variable features that determine the kind and in part the effect or quality. It distinguishes carefully between the two main types : instrumentalirony (of which verbalirony is the most common form) and observableirony (which includes dramaticirony,irony of (...) events, generalirony and other situational ironies). A distinction is also drawn between open and closedirony. (shrink)

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark   8 citations  

This article endeavours to provide a cross-cultural juxtaposition between Kierkegaard and Zhuangzi, two thinkers of significant stature in the history of Eastern and Western philosophy, to unveil a profound congruity between Christian and Daoist thoughts. Specifically, by examining the works of Kierkegaard, particularly his concept ofirony and ‘transparent self’, and exploring the similar key themes present in Zhuangzi’s writings, we endeavour to highlight the similarities between Kierkegaard and Zhuangzi. Both of the intellectuals enter the discussion on the process (...) of individual spiritual practice through ‘irony’ and set their goals on ‘salvation’, emphasising the importance of the process of spiritual practice, which provides possibilities for dialogues between Christian and Daoist thoughts. Contribution: Previous research frequently underscores the profound differences between Kierkegaard and Zhuangzi. Based on the discussion of certain concepts, this article argues that, analysing the consistency between the two at the level of spiritual practice can help us understand the possibility of dialogue between Christian and Daoist thoughts. (shrink)

Direct download(4 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   1 citation  

Qu'est-ce que l'ironie? Quelles en sont les formes? Quels en sont les pièges aussi? Autant de délicates questions auxquelles l'auteur répond, non sans ironie lui-même, avec l'aide d'une infinité d'exemples qui montrent son immense culture, musicale aussi bien que philosophique. Sommairement, qu'est-ce que l'ironie, sinon la conscience, mais une bonne conscience joyeuse, ce en quoi elle se distingue de l'hypocrisie? Pas d'humour sans amour, ni d'ironie sans joie. L'ironie, en somme, sauve ce qui peut être sauvé. Elle est mortelle aux (...) illusions ; partout elle tisse les toiles d'araignée où se prendront les pédants, les vaniteux et les grotesques. " Ironie, vraie liberté! ", s'écrie Proudhon au fond de sa cellule de Sainte-Pélagie. L'ironie remet tout en question ; par ses interrogations indiscrètes elle ruine toute définition, dérange à tout moment la pontifiante pédanterie prête à s'installer dans une déduction satisfaite. Grâce à l'ironie, la pensée respire plus légèrement quand elle s'est reconnue, dansante et grinçante, dans le miroir de la réflexion. (shrink)

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark  

Economics for Alfred Marshall, the last of the classical economists, is concerned with activities in the ordinary business of life. In that milieu, we find conflicts and chaotic behavior among people, firms, and countries, which make them conduct their affairs in different, and sometimes, ironic ways. Economic Ironies Throughout History explores, explains, predicts, and harnesses these ironies for economists and scholars alike. Szenberg and Ramrattan distill their core economic ironies from a vast history of philosophy and literature that applies to (...) economic thought. They include philosophical, psychological, literary and linguistic discussions and the personalities behind those ideas such as Socrates, Kierkegaard, Hume, Freud, Jung, Saussure, and Barthes. This book is ideal for economists as well as scholars across the business, social science, and humanities fields. (shrink)

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark  

The paper develops a speech act-based model of verbalirony. It argues, first, that ironic utterances are speech actions performed as conforming to a socially accepted procedure and, second, that they are best understood as so-called etiolated uses of language. The paper is organized into four parts. The first one elaborates on Austin's doctrine of the etiolations of language and distinguishes between the normal or serious mode of communication and its etiolated mode. The second part discusses the dominant approaches (...) to verbalirony and argues that theirony-as-a-trope theories can be viewed as attempts to describe ironic utterances as cases of normal speech, whereas the metalinguistic theories seem to treat them as etiolated uses of language. The third part proposes a set of felicity conditions for ironic acts and puts forth a hypothesis that echo and overt pretence are complementary techniques of linguistic etiolation used for ironizing. The fourth part uses the proposed model to discuss the social dimension of ironizing and argues that utterances intended as acts of ironizing may trigger the accommodating process of context-repair. The take-home message is that ironic utterances are essentially social actions: acts performed by invoking a socially accepted procedure. (shrink)

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark   4 citations  

This paper takes the position that the aim of existential teaching, i.e., teaching where existential questions are addressed, consists in educating the students in light of subjective truth, where the students are ‘educated’ to exist on their own, i.e., independent of the teacher. The question is whether it is possible to educate in light of existence. It is, in fact impossible, as existence is a subjective matter, meaning that it must be determined individually. In this way the existential teaching appears (...) thus: even though existence cannot be determined educationally, as it is a subjective matter, it does require some kind of education. However, the teacher cannot make use of pedagogical means that coerce the students to take responsibility for their subjective truth. A pedagogical ‘expedient’ is nonetheless required, which deprives of all types of constraint but still opens up for the students taking responsibility for their subjective truth. I argue that this expedient must beirony, but not all types ofirony. I therefore discuss which conception ofirony the existential teaching should and should not be connected with. (shrink)

Direct download(5 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

-/-Irony is an intriguing topic, central to the study of meaning in language. This book provides an introduction to the pragmatics ofirony. It surveys key work carried out onirony in a range of disciplines such as semantics, pragmatics, philosophy and literary studies, and from a variety of theoretical perspectives including Grice's approach, Sperber and Wilson's echoic account, and Clark and Gerrig's pretense theory. It looks at a number of uses ofirony and explores (...) howirony can be misunderstood cross-culturally, before delving into the key debates on the pragmatics ofirony: isirony always negative? Why do speakers communicate viairony, and which strategies do they usually employ? How areirony and sarcasm different? Isirony always funny? To answer these questions, basic pragmatic notions are introduced and explained. It includes multiple examples and activities to enable the reader to apply the theoretical frameworks to actual everyday instances ofirony. (shrink)

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark   1 citation  

" Here Jonathan Lear argues thatirony is one of the tools we use to live seriously, to get the hang of becoming human.

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   57 citations  

Irony is nothing new to philosophy; quite the contrary, it is as familiar as the figure of Socrates. Yet when, for example, Socrates asks Euthyphro to teach him about piety because of Euthyphro's obvious knowledge of the subject, Socrates‘irony has little philosophical significance. Socrates says something contrary to what he means, and Euthyphro in his arrogance takes the statement literally. Plato uses Socraticirony to dramatic affect by allowing the events of the drama to unfold in (...) such a way that it becomes clear that Socrates’ literal praise of Euthyphro’s knowledge is incongruous with the results of the discussion taking place, although Euthyphro is hardly aware of the incongruity. The significance of this literary technique is that the reader be made conscious of the possibility of his own arrogance and the hindrance this would create to true philosophical understanding. As important as this use ofirony is to Plato's Socratic dialogues, theirony is not the philosophical thesis. (shrink)

Direct download(4 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

This important new book offers the first full-length interpretation of the thought of Martin Heidegger with respect toirony. In a radical reading of Heidegger's major works (from Being and Time through the ‘Rector's Address' and the ‘Letter on Humanism' to ‘The Origin of the Work of Art' and the Spiegel interview), Andrew Haas does not claim that Heidegger is simply being ironic. Rather he argues that Heidegger's writings make such an interpretation possible - perhaps even necessary. Heidegger_begins_ Being (...) and Time with a quote from Plato, a thinker famous for his insistence upon Socraticirony. TheIrony of Heidegger takes seriously the apparently curious decision to introduce the threat ofirony even as philosophy begins in earnest to raise the question of the meaning of being. Through a detailed and thorough reading of Heidegger's major texts and the fundamental questions they raise, Haas reveals that one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century can be read with as muchirony as earnestness. TheIrony of Heidegger attempts to show that the essence of thisirony lies in uncertainty, and that the entire project of onto-heno-chrono-phenomenology, therefore needs to be called into question. >. (shrink)

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark   4 citations  

Verbalirony is used daily in social interactions, fulfilling various functions in human communication. As much as about 8% of all conversational turns among English-speaking friends living in the...

No categories

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

This article examines Richard Rorty’s much criticized figure of the ironist, and the role that it plays in liberal society. It argues that, against Rorty’s own presentation,irony might have positive social consequences. It does so by examining Rorty’s description of the ironist, arguing that it contains different ideas which emerge at different points in Contingency,Irony, and Solidarity. It takes up William Curtis’ claim thatirony is a civic virtue, one closely associated with liberal ideas such (...) as tolerance and pluralism. Curtis is insightful in identifying this aspect ofirony, but I argue that it might also play a further role. The ironist is concerned with self-creation, something which Rorty takes to be a private activity, but I argue that the selves ironists create might potentially benefit liberal society, with the ironist’s redescriptions calling into question received wisdom and alerting us to unnoticed forms of cruelty. (shrink)

No categories

Direct download(3 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   5 citations  

Frege’s distinction between force and sense is a central pillar of modern thinking about meaning. This is the idea that a self-standing utterance of a sentence S can be divided into two components. One is the proposition P that S’s linguistic meaning and context associates with it. The other is S’s illocutionary force. The force/sense distinction is associated with another thesis, the embedding principle, that implies that the only content that embeds in compound sentences is propositional content. We argue that (...) both the Force/Sense distinction and the principle of embedding are seriously challenged by figurative language, andirony in particular. We conclude that theorists need to go back to the drawing board about the nature of illocutionary acts. (shrink)

Direct download(5 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   5 citations  

Irony, humor and the comic play vital yet under-appreciated roles in Kierkegaard's thought. Focusing upon the Concluding Unscientific Postscript , this book investigates these roles, relatingirony and humor as forms of the comic to central Kierkegaardian themes. How does the comic function as a form of "indirect communication"? What roles canirony and humor play in the infamous Kierkegaardian "leap"? Do certain forms of wisdom depend upon possessing a sense of humor? And is such a sense (...) of humor thus a genuine virtue? (shrink)

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark   15 citations  

In the so-called ‘irony debate,’ one of the most infamous polemics of modern intellectual history, G.W.F. Hegel accuses his German romantic contemporaries of being ‘nicht im Ernst’—not in earnest—with respect toirony. Given how this complaint is lodged alongside other, highly charged accusations (e.g. ‘hypocrisy,’ ‘absolute sophistry’ and ‘evil’), the unsurprising consensus among scholars today is that Hegel’s critique does injustice to the philosophically rich account of romanticirony. Acknowledging this vindication of romanticirony, however, I (...) want to revisit and revise this criticism in a way that makes sense of the seemingly paradoxical claim that earnestness, rather than being the opposite ofirony, is the very condition of it. Having clarified both the robust normativity of romanticirony as well as the specific shortcomings of Hegel’s critique in the first part of this paper, I then articulate what I call the ‘earnestness condition,’ or EC, according to whichirony is in earnest when (a) it has substance, and (b) is grounded in its substance. Developing this account both advances a largely stalled scholarly discussion of theirony debate and develops a conceptual language useful for distinguishing between thick and thin kinds ofirony in use today. (shrink)

No categories

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

This paper examines the seemingly unlikely rapport between the ‘Christian existentialist’, radically Protestant thinker, Søren Kierkegaard and French classicist and historian of philosophy, Pierre Hadot, famous for advocating a return to the ancient pagan sense of philosophy as a way of life. Despite decisive differences we stress in our concluding remarks, we argue that the conception of philosophy in Hadot as a way of life shares decisive features with Kierkegaard’s understanding of the true ‘religious’ life: as something demanding existential engagement (...) from its proponent, as well as the learning or recitation of accepted doctrines. The mediating figure between the two authors, the paper agrees with Irina, is Socrates and his famousirony. In order to appreciate Kierkegaard’s rapport with Hadot, then we first of all consider Hadot’s treatment of the enigmatic ‘old wise man’ who remains central to Kierkegaard’s entire authorship. However, to highlight Hadot’s Socratic proximity to Kierkegaard, we set up Hadot’s Socrates against the contrasting portrait readers can find in John M. Cooper’s recent work on Socrates and philosophy as a way of life. Part II of the essay turns back from Hadot’s and Kierkegaard’s Socrates towards Hadot’s own work, and argues—again moving beyond both Gregor and Irina’s works on Hadot and Kierkegaard—that the shape of Hadot’s ‘authorship’, including his remarkably classical style, can be understood by way of Kierkegaard’s notion of indirect communication. In our concluding remarks, in the spirit of Kierkegaard, we pinpoint the fundamental difference between the two thinkers, arguing that for Hadot in contrast to Kierkegaard, a stress on existential commitment in no way speaks against the philosophical defence of a form of rational universalism. Reading Hadot via Kierkegaard allows us to appreciate Hadot’s novelty as attempting to ‘squaring the circle’ between an emphasis on subjectivity and, as it were, the subjective dimensions of philosophers’ pursuit of rational universality. (shrink)

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   3 citations  

_ Source: _Volume 11, Issue 2, pp 149 - 172 Even among sympathetic readers, there abides a sense that Proclus’ attachment to his authorities at least partially blinds him to Socraticirony. This has serious implications for his conciliation of Homer and Plato in the Sixth Essay of his _Commentary on the Republic_. A significant number of the passages in Plato’s dialogues, which Proclus takes as necessitating their agreement, appear to be examples of Socrates’ ironic mode. If this apparent (...) necessity exists only through a failure to recognize the ironic character of these statements, it would seem to indicate the truth of E.R. Dodds’ famous judgement of Proclus, that he is properly philosophical only insofar as his thought is not subject to the irrationalisms of his pagan piety. The contention of this essay is that Proclus’ project of conciliation is not, in fact, driven by a refusal to recognize Socraticirony, but by his nuanced interpretation of it, an interpretation that is clarified through a consideration of the striking parallels it has with his understanding of poetic symbol. In following this path of inquiry, it will become evident that Proclus’ position on Socraticirony, and the theological conciliation it necessitates, is not an irrational interruption of his otherwise rational system, but an integral feature of its philosophical coherence. (shrink)

Direct download(3 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

Socraticirony can be understood independently of the immortal heroics of Plato’s Socrates. We need a systematic account and criticism of it both as a debate-winning strategy of argumentation and teaching method. The Speaker introduces an issue pretending to be at a lower intellectual level than her co-debaters, or Participants. An Audience looks over and evaluates the results. How is it possible that the Speaker like Socrates is, consistently, in the winning position? The situation is ironic because the Participants (...) fight from a losing position but realize it too late. Socraticirony compares with divineirony: divineirony is a subtype of Socraticirony since you lose when you challenge gods. Socraticirony is also, prima facie, a subtype of dramaticirony when the Audience knows more than the Participants on the stage. We must distinguish between the ideal and realistic elements of SocraticIrony. The very idea of Socraticirony looks idealized, or it is an ideal case, which explains the Speaker’s consistently winning position. In real life, the debate must be rigged, or the Dutch Book argument applies to the Participants, if the Speaker is so successful. (shrink)

No categories

Direct download(3 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

‘Irony,’ says Quintilian, is that figure of speech or trope ‘in which something contrary to what is said is to be understood’ . His formula has stood the test of time. It passes intact into Dr Johnson's dictionary . It survives virtually intact in ours:Irony is the use of words to express something other than, and especially the opposite of, [their] literal meaning.

Direct download(4 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   26 citations  

ABSTRACT:Relational leadership invokes an ethics involving a leader’s affective engagement and genuine concern with the interests of others. This ethics faces practical difficulties given it implies a seemingly limitless responsibility to a set of incommensurable ethical demands. This article contributes to addressing the impasse this creates in three ways. First, it clarifies the nature of the tensions involved by theorising relational leadership as caught in an irreconcilable bind between an infinitely demanding ethics and the finite possibilities of a response to (...) those demands. Second, it examines this ethical challenge in acknowledgement of the hierarchical discourses and power dynamics in which leadership relationships are constrained and enacted. Third, it proposes “ethicalirony” as a way leaders can respond to the demand for ethics without resulting in either an escape from ethics, or being crushed by its burden. Three dimensions of ethicalirony are examined: ironic perspective, ironic performance, and ironic predilection. (shrink)

Direct download(3 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   7 citations  

Socratic Method in the Euthyphro can be fruitfully analysed as a method ofirony interpretation. Socrates' method – theirony ofirony interpretation – is to pretend that Euthyphro is an ironist in order to transform him into a self-ironist. To be a self-ironist is to ironize one's knowledge of virtue in order to bring an intuitive and unarticulated awareness of virtue to mind. The exercise of the capacity for self-irony is then a mode of striving (...) for the good. (shrink)

Direct download(3 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   7 citations  

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark  

Grice proposed an implicature-based account ofirony, according to which ironical utterances give rise to an antiphrasis implicature. This view, which followed the classical rhetorical account ofirony, merely transported it from the semantic to the pragmatic domain, which is clearly not enough to answer the questions which the antiphrasis account triggers, i.e., the explanation of how the hearer recovers the antiphrasis interpretation, or of why the speaker should say something when she means exactly the reverse. A final, (...) and devastating, criticism is, quite simply, that not all ironical utterances are assertions and, hence, that the antiphrasis account does not easily apply to them. What is more, some ironical utterances, perhaps most of them, do not at all trigger an antiphrasis. Contemporary accounts ofirony, such as those proposed by Sperber and Wilson — the echoic account — or by Currie — the pretence account —, do not meet with the same difficulties. They are generally presented as being able to account for “central” examples ofirony and as incompatible..In the present paper, I will show that the echoic and the pretence accounts, far from being incompatible, seem to be applicable to exactly the same set of examples, and that, in fact, some of the strictures levelled by Currie against the echoic account are not in fact valid criticism. Additionally, there are quite a lot of examples of ironical utterances which are not susceptible of an account in terms of echo or pretence. Thus, it seems that neither account can serve as a general account ofirony. I finally propose an account in terms of ironical utterancesshowing(rather thansaying) an unreasonable behaviour, belief or reasoning on the part of the target of theirony and plead for a Gricean account, based not on an antiphrasis implicature, but on meaningNN and the recognition of the double-barrelled intention of the speaker. This, clearly, is compatible with the echoic or pretence accounts, though more general than either. (shrink)

No categories

Direct download(4 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

Bainbridge’s well known “Ironies of Automation” Analysis, design and evaluation of man–machine systems. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp 129–135, 1983. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-029348-6.50026-9) laid out a set of fundamental criticisms surrounding the promises of automation that, even 30 years later, remain both relevant and, in many cases, intractable. Similarly, a set of ironies in technologies for sensor driven self-quantification is laid out here, spanning from instrumental problems in human factors design to much broader social problems. As with automation, these ironies stand in the way (...) of many of the promised benefits of these wearable technologies. It is argued here that without addressing these ironies now, the promises of wearables may not come to fruition, and instead users may experience outcomes that are opposite to those which the designers seek to afford, or, at the very least, those which consumers believe they are being offered. This paper describes four key ironies of sensor driven self-quantification: know more, know better versus no more, no better; greater self-control versus greater social control; well-being versus never being well enough; more choice versus erosion of choice. (shrink)

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   5 citations  

As a powerful discursive trope,irony is used to interpret the recent Israeli-Palestinian ‘conflict’ since 7 October 2023. Hinging on various political discourses, the paper examines the workings of the political language, emphasisingirony. Interconnected with semiotics, hyperrealism and Jean Baudrillard’s concepts of simulacra, where the boundaries between what is real and imaginary are blurred, the paper aims to fulfil three objectives. First, it stresses the importance of studyingirony in understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how language (...) is used to manufacture consent, especially in media discourses. Second, based on the definition of a ‘lack of fit’ between what is real and what is imaginary, the paper argues thatirony surpasses the classic pragmatic interpretations. It is used as a social critique but also contributes to the hyperreal. Third, the paper explains how the use of language in political media discourses aims to score ideological goals. (shrink)

No categories

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark  

The purpose of the paper is to show how the reading of Kafka’s Prometheus offered by Hans Blumenberg in Arbeit am Mythos authorizes a re-understanding of this short story as a device within which the meta-representative moment and the questioning moment are configured as two indissolubly linked aspects. In this perspective, starting from the recognition of the key role played by the mechanism ofirony in the construction of the Kafkaesque short story, the article aims to highlight the three (...) different levels of articulation of such a mechanism, with particular reference to its ability to exhibit – at the same time – the transcendibility of the datum and the need to think the sense as «infinite deferral». (shrink)

No categories

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

_ Source: _Volume 10, Issue 2, pp 151 - 167 This paper considers the unity of Socrates’ twin apparitions of sophist and statesman, alluded to in the _Sophist_. Examining how these apparitions are at work in the _Theaetetus_, I argue that the difficulty is that of combining the nurturing or educative role of the statesman with the sophist’s practice of refutation. Beginning from Socrates’ shift in appearance early in the dialogue, I argue that the cause of this shift is Theaetetus’ (...) character, that this forces the general problem Socrates has in mind into a particular form, and that Theaetetus never fully grasps this fundamental, intractable problem. Consequently, the problem’s intractability shows why Socratic education is always refutative, and so combines the statesman and sophist’s respective arts. And because Theaetetus is the cause of Socrates’ shift, the philosopher’s appearance is always an ironic reflection of his interlocutor’s opinions: the dialogue the _Philosopher_ would have to be named the _Theaetetus_. (shrink)

Direct download(3 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

In contemporary literary culture there is a widespread belief that ironies and paradoxes are closely akin. This is due to the importance that is given to the use of language in contemporary estimations of literature. Ironies and paradoxes seem to embody the sorts of a linguistic rebellion, innovation, deviation, and play, that have throughout this century become the dominant criteria of literary value. The association ofirony with paradox, and of both with literature, is often ascribed to the New (...) Criticism, and more specifically to Cleanth Brooks. Brooks, however, used the two terms in a manner that was unconventional, even eccentric, and that differed significantly from their use in figurative theory. I therefore examineirony and paradox as verbal figures, noting their characteristic features and criteria, and, in particular, how they differ from one another. I argue thatirony and paradox — as understood by Brooks — have important affinities withirony and paradox as figures, but that they must be regarded as quite distinct, both in figurative theory and in Brooks’ extended sense. (shrink)

No categories

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

Socrates was one of the great innovators of Greek philosophy inasmuch as he discovered the principal role of the general notion as such in finding truth. Without a doubt, his criterion in doing so was, besides an absolute confidence in reason, something like a response to an instance he believed to be somehow divine. This included a certain distance, rational and existential, from all the principles and values of the community in which he lived. A deeper analysis of Socrates' essential (...) intentions reveals a special view of existential honor which made it impossible for Socrates to escape what he considered his destiny. This existential attitude took the form ofirony, as his fellow-citizens were quite incapable of understanding what he meant. (shrink)

Direct download(4 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

RÉSUMÉ: Cet article présente une critique de la position dite de l’ «ironie morale», une position philosophique passablement répandue dans la culture intellectuelle con temporaine et dont la caractéristique centrale est de mettre en question de façon radicale le concept de vérité morale. En m’appuyant sur la lecture de Foucault pro posée par Robert Réal Fillion, je dégage les présuppositions qui sont au cœur de la position en question. Je souligne ensuite ses implications pragmatiques; en acceptant le gambit épistémologique, crucial (...) en l’occurrence, selon lequel toutes les affirmations d’ordre moral sont en dernière analyse des descriptions fausses, nous renonçons en fait à notre capacité de juger d’une manière signifiante qu’un état de choses, une ligne de conduite, etc., est qualitivement supérieur à un autre. La question ici posée est donc la suivante: étant admis que la conception ironique de la moralité implique cette perte considérable, les raisons fournies en sa faveur sont-elles suffisamment bonnes pour étayer une attitude aussi forte et aussi radicale à l’endroit de la moralité et de la vérité? Ma thèse est qu’elles ne le sont pas et qu’en réalité on s’abuse en acceptant pour nécessaire et inévitable cette conception débilitante de la moralité. Les raisons sur la foi desquelles cette conclusion est admise semblent inattaquables à première vue, mais il se révèle à y regarder de plus près qu’elles sont non concluantes et inadéquates, ou qu’elles requièrent à tout le moins une révision sérieuse. (shrink)

No categories

Direct download(3 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:AfterIrony: Aristophanes’ Wealth and its Modern InterpretersJames McGlewThe contest between Chremylus and Penia in Wealth (488–626) lies at the center of interpretations of Aristophanes’ final surviving play and of Old Comedy’s dramatic and receptive development in Aristophanes’ last years. In much of the work of scholars since Helmut Flashar’s 1967 article, 1 and including A. E. Bowie’s recent study (1993) on Aristophanes, that contest and the episodic (...) portion of the play following it are seen as dominated by a tension between the play’s logical consequences and its dramatic outcomes; Penia, these scholars believe, gives the better argument, and when Chremylus nonetheless proceeds with his plan of restoring Plutus’ sight, his program is haunted by her warnings: for the insightful members of the audience, Chremylus’ plan proves to be a social and ethical catastrophe. This “ironic interpretation” of Wealth has troubled some recent commentators. But most of those who refuse to see a fundamental disengagement between the logic and drama imbedded in the play, find a similar tension between the play’s dramatic promise and its reception; for Konstan and Dillon (1981) and for Olson (1993), the play imagines universal wealth but serves a conservative, anti-revolutionary ideology: comic fantasy provides an escape for an increasingly impoverished and powerless dēmos. Thus, even if Wealth did not persuade poor Athenians that Penia was better than Plutus, it still helped keep them loyal to her.Recent interest in Wealth has had some effect in rescuing the play from literary death. Viewed as enervated and unimaginative by most scholars of recent generations, 2 Wealth has regained the moral weight [End Page 35] that once inspired the Italian Renaissance to honor it before any other work of Greek antiquity with a Latin translation, 3 and that invited the attention of Fielding (Aristophanes 1742) and other modern translators. Underlying this new interpretation of Wealth lies a reassessment of its dramatic qualities: the dramatic and narrative infelicities that troubled the last generation of Aristophanes scholars are now seen as keys to the subtlety of this last extant example of Old Comedy. But the revived interest and dramatic reassessment of Wealth have made it into a very different play. 4 What earlier scholars had read as a somewhat anemic flight into escapist fantasy is now taken as a demonstration that wealth and justice, good behavior and material happiness are inherently irreconcilable. Chremylus may dream of universal wealth, but the play itself hopes to offer its audience a superior moral wisdom.The new readings of Wealth constitute a relatively united front against which the few dissident voices—Sommerstein’s (1984) is the most important 5 —have had little effect. This paper examines the dramatic and political character of Aristophanes’ last comedy to argue that Wealth itself thematizes the relationship between comic fantasy and its audience’s private desires, a relationship at the heart of recent conservative interpretations of the play. I will suggest that Aristophanes has constructed Chremylus’ victory over Penia to restate—albeit his audience and comedy itself were changing—the political significance and integrity of comic fantasy. Accused by Penia at 557—and by her modern admirers—of doing nothing more than “trying to kō mō idein” her, Chremylus [End Page 36] invites his audience “to laugh at poverty” and dream of escaping it in a way that reaffirms Athenian democratic identity and celebrates the decision-making powers of the collective dē mos. 6The ironic interpretation of Wealth, and even some critics of this interpretation, 7 assume that Aristophanes’ audience would have perceived, and held on to the perception, that Penia’s argument was stronger than Chremylus’; and that, moreover, the superiority of Penia’s argument shaped the audience’s view of the second half of Wealth, which presents a utopic vision of life without her (Olson 1993, 235–36). But the comic arguments of Aristophanes’ earlier agons—our best source for reconstructing the expectations of Wealth’s audience—do not offer much support for these assumptions. Arguments win in Aristophanes’ earlier plays by uniting the Chorus, the synecdochic audience, behind the protagonist; for this, verifiable fact is not necessarily the best tool. In Acharnians, Dicaeopolis’ argument... (shrink)

No categories

Direct download(6 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

Dans quelles circonstances et pourquoi Robert K. Merton a-t-il rencontré l’idée de serendipity? Quelle place occupe-t-elle dans son œuvre? Cet article propose de reconstituer pas à pas l’histoire de cette rencontre, qui ne manque pas d’ironie ni de piquant. En elle-même « sérendipienne », la découverte accidentelle mais tellement féconde du mot serendipity ouvrit à Merton nombre de pistes de recherche au cours des années 1940. Le concept intrigant de la découverte fortuite qui – entre autres vertus – engendre des (...) résultats de nature à transformer la théorie promettait d’enrichir et de renouveler la connaissance objective. Mais la serendipity était plus qu’une recette heuristique à appliquer en science. Chez Merton, c’était aussi l’objet privilégié et « auto-exemplifiant » d’une sémantique sociologique des concepts, dont l’ambition est d’étudier les itinéraires des terminologies dans la culture. En retraçant la genèse de la recherche qu’il mena avec Elinor Barber sur l’histoire du mot et des significations parfois volatiles de la serendipity, on parviendra à saisir pourquoi ce thème revêtait pour Merton un double intérêt stratégique, à la fois épistémologique et autobiographique. On comprendra aussi pourquoi une nouvelle traduction en français du premier fragment d’article dans lequel le sociologue conceptualise la serendipity en 1948 est de bonne méthode sérendipienne. (shrink)

No categories

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark  

I have two aims. I want to show first that a proper understanding and use ofirony can enrich the aesthetic imagination and, second, that Søren Kierkegaard's description ofirony rather than Richard Rorty's better explains howirony enriches the aesthetic imagination. The paper's central claim is that aesthetic imagination springs from experiencing the necessary tension between appearances and reality and thatirony, correctly employed, accentuates in our thinking the imagination required to keep this tension in (...) our representations, thereby enabling the aesthetic imagination to grow.Immanuel Kant claims that the aesthetic judgment is an act of the imagination, not of the understanding: In order to distinguish... (shrink)

Direct download(4 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

Speakers can express a critical, dissociative attitude by being ironic. According to the Echoic account of verbalirony, this attitude targets a proposition that echoes a thought attributed to someone other than the speaker herself at the present time. This study investigated the role of echo inirony processing across the lifespan. Through a self-paced reading task, we assessed whether the degree of explicitness of the proposition echoed by the ironical statement and the age of the participant influenced (...)irony processing. Our results show that, independently of age, ironic statements were costlier to process than literal statements, with aging further increasing difficulty. Crucially, our manipulation of the echo affected reading times: it was more complex to processirony when this echoed an implicature or an implicit expectation, particularly for older adults. This work corroborates the role of the echo in verbalirony providing insights into age-related changes inirony processing. (shrink)

Direct download(3 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

“[Niebuhr] is one of my favorite philosophers. I take away [from his works] the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away... the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard.”—President Barack Obama Forged during the tumultuous but triumphant postwar years when America (...) came of age as a world power, TheIrony of American History is more relevant now than ever before. Cited by politicians as diverse as Hillary Clinton and John McCain, Niebuhr’s masterpiece on the incongruity between personal ideals and political reality is both an indictment of American moral complacency and a warning against the arrogance of virtue. Impassioned, eloquent, and deeply perceptive, Niebuhr’s wisdom will cause readers to rethink their assumptions about right and wrong, war and peace. “The supreme American theologian of the twentieth century.”—Arthur Schlesinger Jr., New York Times “Niebuhr is important for the left today precisely because he warned about America’s tendency—including the left’s tendency—to do bad things in the name of idealism. His thought offers a much better understanding of where the Bush administration went wrong in Iraq.”—Kevin Mattson, The Good Society “Irony provides the master key to understanding the myths and delusions that underpin American statecraft.... The most important book ever written on US foreign policy.”—Andrew J. Bacevich, from the Introduction. (shrink)

No categories

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark   15 citations  

According to Richard Rorty ,irony and solidarity are attitudes which work against rather than promote one another. From Rorty s perspective,irony is an inappropriate response to the discovery of our contingency. It prevents us from developing the ethnocentric attitude which Rorty advocates on the grounds that it allows for a sense of solidarity that is not in conflict with the ideal of negative freedom. As I will briefly indicate in the body of this article, the problem (...) with this proposal is that it leaves out of consideration a different type ofirony which, instead of requiring external ethnocentric correction, could help us in correcting some of the biases in Rorty s self-avowed ethnocentrism. (shrink)

Direct download(3 more)   Export citation   Bookmark