Much Ado About (Almost) Nothing: In Defense of Magister Kierkegaard

AbstractKierkegaards account of Socratic irony in The Concept of Irony is often criticized for neglecting the positive articulation of mastered irony. Scholars regularly cite the superior authority of Johannes Climacus, who, in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, chides Magister Kierkegaard for this precise lapse. In this essay, I develop an interpretation of Socratic irony that is faithful both to the account elaborated in The Concept of Irony and to the wider contemporaneous reception of Socratic irony. The most plausible explanation for this reception is that the irony of Socrates was exclusively negative-just as Magister Kierkegaard proposed in The Concept of Irony

Much Ado About (Almost) Nothing: In Defense of Magister Kierkegaard Book