De l'Ironie

Everything is ironical, or can be made to be with very little effort. This or that particular book, film, work of art, pun accompanied by exaggerated winks, a controlled but trembling grin around the edges of a person's mouth — everything becomes, or has become, irony. It is the attitude of the times, the facile trademark of the latest futility of meaning, the alibi or cultural varnish of a soon-to-be-vindicated vacuity.
Let us go back to Socrates, who was the first to challenge what we considered as immutable assumptions. Yet Plato was keeping watch, and philosophy soon abandoned this form of complexity.
The author's aim is to relate the philosophical journey behind this concept by reconsidering its critical challenges that were based upon essential traits : the emergence of a delay, a spirit of movement and claudication, a certain idea of divergence and modernity, an irreconcilability.
Here, the author focuses the aesthetic debate on images and the cinema : by confronting the ironic dynamic with the issue of remakes, he extends criticism to the cultural industries.

Sébastien Rongier holds a doctorate in aesthetics. He teaches at Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne. He is also a member of the Editorial Committee of the literary website www.remue.net.