Kierkeggard's Exposition On Irony: The Cirtique Of Ethics From The Existential Perspective

It is the Socratic complex in Kierkegaard's life that drives his reflection on ethical issues that can be called "Socratic irony". In his dissertation of Master, The Concept of Irony, with Continual Reference to Socrates, he describes "Socratic irony" as a stance of Hegel's "infinite absolute negativity", as Kierkegaard puts it. He also points out that Hegel overlooked that "Socratic irony" plays a role in the ethical quality of Socrates'. When Kierkegaard discusses the ethical quality of Socratic irony, in his Philosophical Fragments, he not only criticizes the speculative philosophy supported by a logical necessity, but also by analyzing Socrates'doctrine of eternal truth, shows Socratic paradox of the ethical quality itself, that is, the contradiction between the presupposition of eternal truth and the moment as starting point of existence.In his books Either/Or, Stages on Life's Way and Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, Kierkegaard uses appropriate description on his theory of "three existence-spheres" about which he thinks that each individual may experience three existential patterns:the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious. Irony is the confinium between the aesthetic and the ethical. Although irony itself does not belong to the existence sphere of the ethical, it has a tendency towards the sphere. Moreover, as for the ethical quality of Socratic irony, he describes it as "the unity of ethical passion and culture". On the one hand, Socratic irony of ethical quality on the starting point of existence manifests the individual's request for freedom and the responsibility in the ideal existence of the ethical; On the other hand, his failure to realize actual existence of the ethical but serve as the confinium of the ethical reveals the inherent contradictions between universal ethical principle and the specific existential state of individuals which brings forth the consciousness of Sin in the existence of the ethical itself. The problem of The Sin is beyond what the ethics research may handle, however, from Kierkegaard's point of view, the requirements of ethical existence for serious attitude towards being oneself must confront this dilemma that The Sin reveals human's failure to fulfill the task of free existence of the ethical.Kierkegaard's criticism to traditional ethics is profound. Socratic irony of ethical quality just exposes the deficiency of ethical existence, which is properly the nature of irony:The ethical existence requires ethical passion of irony to be self, but ironically, which deconstructs the ethical existence in the end. This paper aims just to discuss how to grasp Kierkegaard's critique of ethics by catching the deconstructive power of Socratic irony of ethical quality so as to break the ethical existence.