Re: BHA: Truth and Lies

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Sprinker writes:

<<The problem:  how does a Habermassian view of language (what Perry
Anderson once dubbed his "angelism") accommodate the ordinary operatin of
irony? >>

That of course is the same problem I posed using the opening sentence of
Austen's *Pride and Prejudice*. I can even complicate that sentence by
expanding on Doug Porpora's suggestion that it comes from *Persuasion*,
for in thinking about that it occurred to me that the sentence does indeed
incorporate the three novels following P&P, so its (non)assertion controls
the reading of those novels too. Moreover, since the sentence is addressed
by the narrator *to* the reader, that is lies out side the overt fiction
and makes a statement (the fictionality of which can be questioned)
*about* the reader ("universally acknowledged") it cannot be easily thrown
out of court by calling it a fiction. In 40 years of teaching I never
succeeded in finding a satisfactory way to explain irony to students. It
seems to be like obscenity in the view of (whichever) supreme court
justice.

Carrol



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