A Case for Irony

by Jonathan Lear

Overview

Vanity Fair has declared the Age of Irony over. Joan Didion has lamented that Obama’s United States is an “irony-free zone." Here Jonathan Lear argues that irony is one of the tools we use to live seriously, to get the hang of becoming human. It forces us to experience disruptions in our habitual ways of tuning out of life, but comes with a cost.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674255197
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	10/06/2014
Series:	The Tanner lectures on human values
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	351 KB

About the Author

Jonathan Lear is John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor on the Committee on Social Thought and in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. His works include Wisdom Won from Illness, Radical Hope, A Case for Irony, and Happiness, Death, and the Remainder of Life.

Table of Contents

Contents
Preface
Part One: The Lectures
1. To Become Human Does Not Come That Easily
2. Ironic Soul
Part Two: Commentary
3. Self-Constitution and Irony
4. Irony, Reflection, and Psychic Unity
5. Psychoanalysis and the Limits of Reflection
6. The Immanence of Irony and the Efficacy of Fantasy
7. Thoughts about Irony and Identity
8. Flight from Irony
9. On the Observing Ego and the Experiencing Ego
10. Observing Ego and Social Voice
Notes
Commentators
Index

What People are Saying About This

JM Coetzee

Before we can claim to live a truly examined life, says Jonathan Lear, we need to pass the test of ironic self-scrutiny at something approaching the level set by Socrates and Kierkegaard. Following the contours of the subtle case for radical irony Lear makes turns out to be an intellectual adventure in its own right.

Editorial Reviews

Before we can claim to live a truly examined life, says Jonathan Lear, we need to pass the test of ironic self-scrutiny at something approaching the level set by Socrates and Kierkegaard. Following the contours of the subtle case for radical irony Lear makes turns out to be an intellectual adventure in its own right.
— J. M. Coetzee

Jonathan Lear's re-reading of the significance of irony for getting the hang of a genuinely human existence is an unheimlich maneuver that brings religion and psychoanalysis into productive conversation with philosophy, and induces characteristically sharp and creative responses from his interlocutors: an exemplary instance of the virtues of the Tanner Lectures format.
— Stephen Mulhall, University of Oxford

Lear performs a valuable service. He shows us just how far the contemporary usage of irony diverges from an older, far more appealing meaning, according to which irony is a portal to self-knowledge.
— Andrew Stark Wall Street Journal

Lear's book provides intellectual pleasure of a very high order: its distinctions are careful, its prose lucid and elegant, and its examples suggestive and well chosen...You should read this book.
— Paul J. Griffiths Commonweal

From the Publisher

Lear performs a valuable service. He shows us just how far the contemporary usage of irony diverges from an older, far more appealing meaning, according to which irony is a portal to self-knowledge.

Wall Street Journal - Andrew Stark

Jonathan Lear's re-reading of the significance of irony for getting the hang of a genuinely human existence is an unheimlich maneuver that brings religion and psychoanalysis into productive conversation with philosophy, and induces characteristically sharp and creative responses from his interlocutors: an exemplary instance of the virtues of the Tanner Lectures format.

Stephen Mulhall

Lear's book provides intellectual pleasure of a very high order: its distinctions are careful, its prose lucid and elegant, and its examples suggestive and well chosen...You should read this book.

Paul J. Griffiths

Before we can claim to live a truly examined life, says Jonathan Lear, we need to pass the test of ironic self-scrutiny at something approaching the level set by Socrates and Kierkegaard. Following the contours of the subtle case for radical irony Lear makes turns out to be an intellectual adventure in its own right.

J. M. Coetzee

Lear's book provides intellectual pleasure of a very high order: its distinctions are careful, its prose lucid and elegant, and its examples suggestive and well chosen...You should read this book.
— Paul J. Griffiths

Commonweal

Lear performs a valuable service. He shows us just how far the contemporary usage of irony diverges from an older, far more appealing meaning, according to which irony is a portal to self-knowledge.
— Andrew Stark

Wall Street Journal