Idealistic Studies

Volume 39, Issue 1/3, Spring/Summer/Fall 2009

Kierkegaard and Aristophanes on the Suspension of Irony

In The Concept of Irony, Kierkegaard aims to show the inadequacy of an ironic standpoint not through a generalized dialectical account of its failure on its own terms but through an empirical examination of the actual life of Socrates. Crucial to his methodology, I argue, is his use of the term “suspend” (svæve). Socratic irony is not overcome, superseded, or annulled, but rather “suspended” in its incomplete connection to its community. In both his depiction of Socrates as hanging in a basket and his deification of insubstantial clouds, Aristophanes provides a model for Kierkegaard’s conception of suspension. By bringing Socrates into direct engagement with the Clouds, Aristophanes shows Kierkegaard not just the tendency of Socratic irony to suspend itself, but a way of approaching irony that does not reduce it to a moment of a greater totality.