From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@rogers.com)
Date: Wed 03 Mar 2004 - 15:10:42 GMT
At 05:06 PM 03/03/04 +1100, you wrote:
>Take a look at Kierkegaard's _The Concept of Irony_, which I believe has a
>comment about ideas having a history, a birth, death and life.
Hmm. "Life" occurs only 4 times in the essay and none of them are
associated with "idea" or "ideas." "Idea" occurs 4 times in this
paragraph. I have added white space in an attempt to make it
readable. The connection to the quote origin is foggy. Part of that may
be because this essay was translated out of Danish. If anyone wants to
comment, be my guest.
Keith Henson
The World-Historical Validity
of Irony,
the Irony of Socrates
If we turn back to the foregoing general description of irony as infinite
absolute negativity, it is adequately suggested therein that irony is no
longer directed against this or that particular phenomenon, against a
particular existing thing, but that the whole of existence has become alien
to the ironic subject and the ironic subject in turn alien to existence,
that as actuality has lost its validity for the ironic subject, he himself
has to a certain degree become unactual.
The word “actuality,” however, must here primarily be understood as
historical actuality—that is, the given actuality at a certain time and in
a certain situation. This word can be understood metaphysically—for
example, as it is used when one treats the metaphysical issue of the
relation of the _idea_ to actuality, where there is no question of this or
that actuality but of the _idea's_ concretion, that is, its actuality—and
the word “actuality” can also be used for the historically actualized _idea._
The latter actuality is different at different times. By this it is in no
way meant that in the sum total of its existence the historical actuality
is not supposed to have an eternal and intrinsic coherence, but for
different generations separated by time and space the given actuality is
different. Even though the world spirit in any process is continually in
itself, this is not the case with the generation at a certain time and the
given individuals at a certain time in the same generation.
For them, a given actuality does not present itself as something that they
are able to reject, because the world process leads the person who is
willing to go along and sweeps the unwilling one along with it. But insofar
as the _idea_ is concrete in itself, it is necessary for it to become
continually what it is—that is, become concrete. But this can occur only
through generations and individuals.
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