Irony In King Lear

The goal of this presentation is to provide a brief overview of the relationship between the practice of irony and religious ritual. In particular, I will argue that we can understand irony as a technique for fostering human flourishing. In this respect, I take that human flourishing is inescapably connected to a context of institutions and social practices within which human beings live. Accordingly, in a way that I will spell out in this presentation, the practice of irony has consequences for the context of practice which define our pursuit of human excellence. Often, religion and its rituals make up for an important part of this institutional context. Assuming that to have a healthy religious life can be regarded as an of human flourishing, then the exercise of irony can help us achieve it. Hence, my argument is that the practice of irony bears the potential for questioning and reviewing our religious rituals, insofar as it brings the potential for questioning and a reviewing our religious life in general. My argument shall proceed as
According to Lear we embody our ideals by putting forward an image of ourselves, where this image is shaped by a self-description of ourselves – wich, following Christine Korsgaard Lear calls our practical identity. Inspired by Kierkegaard, Lear labels this action of putting-ourselves forward as "pretending"1 - where in this context to pretend has nothing to do with the common meaning we give to it, that is, as concerning in some way make-believe. Instead, what is relevant here is the perhaps more old-fashioned meaning of pretending, that is, pretending in the sense of putting oneself forward or making a claim. So for instance, in this meaning of pretending, a pretender to a throne is someone putting herself forward as the legitimate heir to the