Gareth said:
My question is how can irony be used to get others to
believe as you do(the purpose of your statement)? On a
personal basis irony subverts friendship and acceptance. In
this instance irony would have limited rhetorical use. In the
marketplace of ideas irony directed to ideas would likely
map those concepts which you oppose. Rhetoric (irony) in
the political struggle for the supremacy of agenda negative
advertising would be very useful. I would be pleased if you
could post a few examples and I could test my hypothesis
in discussion with you, sort of reading between the lines of
Socrates' mission.
Matt:
I have to apologize, but I'm not exactly clear about what
we are talking about anymore.
Your question, "how can irony be used to get others to
believe as you do?" I think has to be answered
negatively--irony can't, or at least, if it ended up doing so,
it would be out of luck. Alexander Nehamas' book, The Art
of Living, has an amazing section on irony in the dialogues,
and how Socrates couldn't have been promoting specific
beliefs. Stanley Fish's book, Self-Consuming Artifacts,
likewise has an excellent reading of the Phaedrus as
exemplifying two approaches, the rhetorical and the
dialectical. The first is the Sophist route of pandering to
the audience's assumptions (otherwise called
"communicating"). The second is the Socratic route, of
challenging assumptions, part of which is done through
irony (which obfuscates intention, as I think you see).
Fish says interestingly, too, that for Socrates and Plato,
the exercise of dialectic merely clears away belief, it
does not plant any (which, come to think of it, has been a
stand-by understanding of the Socratic elenchus for years).
Oh, and in my circle of friends, irony is the local custom and
shibboleth. Rather than subversion, it _is_ the sign of
acceptance.
Matt
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