Tragedy, Tragic Irony, and War: A Dialectical Approach
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article "Tragedy, Tragic Irony, and War: A Narrative Approach" is without a doubt an original article that presents a clear and argumentatively convincing thesis. The tragic is distinguished from disaster by understanding the tragic in its proper sense as being accompanied by irony. To this end, recourse is made primarily to Hegel's concepts of tragic irony and the 'cunning of reason'.
Nevertheless, some essential points should be revised if the article is to be accepted as a scholarly article and not just as an essay:
1) On the one hand, the approach should be even more clearly placed in the state of research on the tragic. On the one hand, it should be emphasized that only one among many possible definitions of the tragic is developed here, namely one oriented towards Hegel. On the other hand, at least a selection of the most important literature on the subject should be cited, e.g.:
- Peter Szondi: Versuch über das Tragische. Frankfurt a.M.: Insel-Verl. 1961. (A fundamental work, which emphasizes that Aristotle defined tragedy, but Schelling, Hegel etc. treated the phenomenon of the tragic for the first time).
- Terry Eagleton: Tragedy. New Haven; London : Yale University Press 2020.
- Philosophy and tragedy, ed. by Miguel de Beistegui and Simon Sparks. London: Routledge 2000.
2) In substance, only a harmonistic and rational variant of the tragic is presented here with Hegel. There is not even a passing mention of Aristotle's definition of the tragic on the basis of peripetia, which should be done even if the approach presented does not follow Aristotle. Furthermore, a great tradition of the tragic is disregarded, which characterizes it via contradiction and the representation of alterity that transcends rationality (Schelling, Hölderlin, Nietzsche, etc.). Moreover, Hegel's interpretation of the tragic is not appreciated in its complexity, and the dialectic as a basic figure of the tragic (cf. Szondi) is mentioned only once (p. 2, line 83).
3) In addition, central quotations or references to texts, especially Hegel's, should be evidenced. Hegel as a central treated author is cited only twice (footnote xii u. xiii), but without mentioning an edition.
4) The text has some typos that should be corrected, e.g.:
- P. 1, line 45: "is the ironized".
- p. 2, line 72: "1869-1816"
Author Response
My Responses to the Referees
Ref. 1
A General Point: The three (3) Referees wrote long comments and made so many requirements and suggestions that I was forced to make a major reconstruction. All referees were interested in the first part of the paper, so I made my corrections accordingly. Their requirements were realistic and sufficiently detailed, so that I was able to respond. I have carefully addressed every single point. I was also impressed to notice that the comments agreed with each other. But at the same time, the Refs paid attention to (many) different things, which can be seen in the final version of the first chapter of my paper. It is larger and much more detailed now. I may have wanted to keep it simple, but the Refs said it was not a good idea.
I am afraid that the version that shows all markup is impossible to read – I made so many changes.
I will proofread the text once again.
Details
Point 1): I have done all that was required and added the three (3) references to the notes (plus more).
Point 2): I have added a brief discussion of Aristotle.
- I mention the “great (German) tradition of the tragic”.
- In my text, I now explicitly recognize and discuss the role of dialectics. This is a major change. I have added Szondi and more.
- I have made my Hegel references better and added The Philosophy of Right (Knox tr.). I have also clarified and enlarged Hegel’s role in my argument.
- Hegel and dialectic are now much more central than earlier.
Reviewer 2 Report
“Tragedy, Tragic Irony and War: A Narrative Approach” takes up the complexities and competing understandings surrounding the interrelation of disaster, tragedy, and irony – specifically, the notion of tragic irony and how it may illuminate our perspectives on various modern wars and conflicts. Philosophically, the discussion draws briefly from Hegelian concepts of tragic irony and the cunning of reason. (Rortyan irony is noted in the abstract but apparently the only attention it gets is a single endnote.)
There are many interesting assertions throughout, like how “A tragedy is a disaster in an abnormal context – which ironizes it,” and how tragedy is “an ironized version of a disaster” (2). However, I struggled to discern the author’s own consistent position, main thesis, and sustained overall argument about the nature of irony. I didn’t find that irony is defined in a clear and coherent way until we get to Hegel’s conception. The author’s primary category seems to be tragic irony, which is only stated somewhat tautologically: “tragedy is ironic per definitionem” (2).) The lack of clear definition is compounded by the many concepts and variations on them introduced in the opening section – e.g., vulgar vs. ironic notions; single and double nexus cases; counterfactual irony; etc.
The second section covers an array of examples of both actual wars and formalized scenarios (e.g., White defeats Red). While there are many local insights into the nuances of how to interpret each one, it is difficult to follow the unifying thread of the author’s argument. In places, the author seems to leave tragic irony behind to discuss the alleged benefits of a war, whether a defeat may be a blessing in disguise, why and how a victory can be harmful, etc. Sometimes a question is posed -- “Is this a new nexus of tragic irony?” (6) – where one would expect to see a key assertion linked to the overall argument. I thought perhaps the claim in the essay’s final paragraph that “Tragic irony does not leave room for consoling heroism and patriotic sentimentalism” (7) might have worked as the overarching claim for section 2. But this is just a guess.
The account of the author’s methodological commitment to a “narrative approach” does not come until section 3 (p. 6 of 7). Here it is described as “linguistic and rhetorical,” along with an allusion to “critical historical research” and “realistic evaluative tradition” (6). But these are not developed or explained to any significant extent, nor used to directly justify the author’s own overall approach. Instead, we do get a potentially interesting conception of “counterfactual tragic irony,” which the author states “requires an extended, objective viewpoint purified from ideologies, moralism, and nostalgia” (7). However, I wasn’t sure how to reconcile this objectivity with the author’s earlier statement that “Tragedy is an open-ended concept with varying interpretations, typical of all ironic ascriptions” (2).
Alas, I cannot recommend publication in Humanities in its current form. A number of essential elements of a publishable-quality essay are not yet evident, including:
1) Establishing that the piece takes up a topic of significance in relation to existing scholarship and debates.
2) A clear articulation of the author’s key overall claim(s) and how these claims constitute a contribution to our knowledge of tragedy, irony, Hegelian irony, the interpretation of war – take your pick.
3) Adequate critical engagement with the existing scholarship cited in the endnotes so that the author’s position and claims are positioned in relation to that scholarship. For example, Huson’s work on Hegelian tragic irony is cited in a note but not critically engaged. As mentioned above, Rortyan irony comes up only in an endnote. That conception may well have potential for helping the author delineate her/his own stance on irony, if both Rorty’s idea itself and existing work on his idiosyncratic understanding of irony were engaged, including among others:
Bacon, Michael. “A Defence of Liberal Ironism.” Res Publica 11, no. 4 (2005): 403–23.
Marchetti, Sarin. “Irony and Redescription.” Iride: Journal of Philosophy and Public Debate 32, no. 88 (2019): 631–43.
Ramberg, Bjørn. “Irony’s Commitment: Rorty’s Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity.” The European Legacy 19, no. 2 (2014): 144–62.
The author no doubt brings a thoughtful perspective to the topics covered. And there may well be the basis for an original contribution here. However, it its current form the key elements necessary for publishable work either are quite difficult to discern or not yet present in the discussion.
Author Response
Ref2
A General Point: The three (3) Referees wrote long comments and made so many requirements and suggestions that I was forced to make a major reconstruction. All referees were interested in the first part of the paper, so I made my corrections accordingly. Their requirements were realistic and sufficiently detailed, so that I was able to respond. I have carefully addressed every single point. I was also impressed to notice that the comments agreed with each other. But at the same time, the Refs paid attention to (many) different things, which can be seen in the final version of the first chapter of my paper. It is larger and much more detailed now. I may have wanted to keep it simple, but the Refs said it was not a good idea.
I am afraid that the version that shows all markup is impossible to read – I made so many changes.
I will proofread the text once again.
Details:
- Rorty now gets full treatment and I use his main ideas throughout. I hope this makes my idea of irony clearer, too. Rorty is now important, and so is Hegel. Dialectics is important.
- I discuss the nature of irony, and its varieties as thoroughly as I can without making the paper too long and overly detailed. I present my own definition of irony.
- Tragedy is ironic: I provide specific reasons for this.
- I have written a new introductory (and motivating) first para to the second chapter. I have added some motivational comments at the beginning of the last, third chapter.
- Overarching claim to section 2: I have added a relevant sentence.
- The problem of mutually conflicting sentences (7) and (2) is solved by elimination. I don’t think there is a conflict here, but because it seems so, I have eliminated the problem rather than explaining the point.
Numbered points:
1) everything is now firmly linked to current research. I have added many new references and sources.
2) I have tried to do this in the Abstract etc., as well as I could. See esp. the beginning of Ch. 2. Also Ch 3.
- I now discuss Huson’s paper in the notes.
Rorty assumes a central role in this new version of the paper. I agree that Rorty is very helpful when I explain the main idea and structure of the paper.
I have added several references to Rorty, including my own paper.
Thank you for thanking me at the end of your comments, however ambiguously. I am sure my paper is much better now.
Reviewer 3 Report
This is a compact and thoughtful account of an interesting question concerning the relationship between tragedy and irony, explored by considering examples of wars from actual and counterfactual history. The author argues that not all disasters are tragedies, but that tragedies become disasters only when they occur in abnormal contexts, and hence are ironic. (1) They introduce the connection between tragedy and irony in a first section, consider some examples drawn primarily but not exclusively from historical wars on a second, and conclude by identifying aspects of their methodology and some features of counterfactual history.
The general claim here, that disasters are tragedies only when they contain at least one ironic “nexus” is an interesting one. However, a core deficiency of the author’s account is that they provide only a limited account of the meaning they ascribe to “irony.” They explicitly argue that they do not simply mean “dramatic irony,” but use the term in a broader and different sense. The reader can do some reconstructive work to make sense of the specific sense in which the author uses the term—it has to do, again, with “abnormal circumstances”; it involves a lack of appropriate “fit” (3)—but it should not be necessary for the reader to do this work. It’s clear from the references that the author has addressed this question elsewhere, but it’s not obvious to me that readers will be generally familiar with the author’s position on these questions (I’m encountering it for the first time in reviewing this piece), so it makes more sense to provide a fuller account of the meaning of irony in the piece. Puzzlingly, the author doesn’t hesitate to depend on dictionary definitions in considering accounts of tragedy, but they don’t situate their account of irony in relation an existing prominent literature or provide a standard definition for the term. (Here’s the closest J. A. Cuddon’s Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms gets: “It seems fairly clear that most forms of irony involved the perception or awareness of a discrepancy or incongruity between words and their meaning, or between actions and their results, or between appearance and reality. In all cases there may be an element of the absurd or paradoxical.” (4th ed., 430))
But in addition to the fact that the specific sense of irony is unclear, it’s also not obvious to me what sort of argument the author is offering for the central claim about the nature of tragedy that they’re advancing: “Call a disaster tragedy, and you are talking about tragic irony – because tragedy is ironic per definitionem.” (2) It seems as though the reader is supposed to find a kind of intuitive evidence for this claim in rejecting senses (A) and (B) as the author presents them on (1). But what recommends this new conception of tragedy? Is it simply that it does not possess the specific shortcomings of the other two? Or is there some other argument that the author supplies for accepting it? This is a dense piece, so it may be the case that there is, beyond bare assertion, an argument for this claim on (1-2), but either I cannot find it, or its determinate character is missing for me.
The author situates their account of tragedy in relation to two ideas prominent in Hegel’s philosophy of history, the world-historical individual, and the cunning of reason. The author does not engage with the extensive literature on these topics, which may not be a problem by itself. However, their account of both is questionable.
They discuss the world-historical individual in the context of presenting what they call “Hegelian Tragic Irony”: “A Historical (sic) subject fails disastrously, which leads to unforeseen greater things where a higher value is revealed.” (2) It does not seem implausible to me to suggest that there is an ironic dimension to world-historical individuals, since the significance of their actions outstrips their particular intentions and motives. But it’s not obvious to me that the irony of world-historical individuals is always tragic. Of course, they are finite, so they die, but it’s not obvious to me that they always suffer the sort of downfall that characterizes tragic heroes.
Second, the author accounts for the idea of the cunning of reason in relation to the idea of the end of history. This is the weakest point in their account of Hegel and his philosophy of history. The idea of the end of history is, of course, one to which Hegel’s interpreters appeal, but which plays no role in Hegel’s own thought. The author rightly observes that Hegel construes history teleologically, but these is no reason to think that because history has a telos that it comes to an end in the sense of resolving as a story does. My body has a telos, a condition of perfection or full realization, but even if I’m able to achieve it, my life will not end at that point, but will continue as I age and fall away from whatever semblance of perfection I’m able to achieve. The distinction here is easily drawn in German—Geschichte has a Zweck in Hegel’s view; romantic art comes to an Ende when it dissolves into subjective humor and objective realism—and interpreters would save themselves a lot of trouble and eliminate a lot of confusion by acknowledging it.
These comments focus on the author’s account of tragic irony, which is their focus in the first section of the paper. However, given the ambiguities and confusions that I find in that introductory section, the accounts of war and counterfactual history that they offer in subsequent sections are negatively affected by those unclarities. I think there’s something of interest in their account here, but it’s unclear exactly what the author wants to present to the reader that is of interest beyond presenting some interesting thought puzzles. Do we learn something valuable about history? Or war? Or tragic irony? The author does draw on the idea of tragic irony to point out that some typical views of war, for example, that it is always good to win, may be false. But is the conceptual framework they provide really necessary to accept this conclusion?
While promising, this piece requires considerable clarification of its aims and central concepts in order to be publishable.
The English is generally good.
The phrase "objects of existence" (pg. 2, ln 88, 90-91) is unclear.
"We" (pg. 5, ln 210) should be "were" I think.
Author Response
A General Point: All three (3) Referees wrote long comments and made so many requirements and suggestions that I was forced to make a major reconstruction. All referees were interested in the first part of the paper, so I made my corrections accordingly. Their requirements were realistic and sufficiently detailed, so that I was able to respond. I have carefully addressed every single point. I was also impressed to notice that the comments agreed with each other. But at the same time, the Refs paid attention to (many) different things, which can be seen in the final version of the first chapter of my paper. It is larger and much more detailed now. I may have wanted to keep it simple, but the Refs said it was not a good idea.
I am afraid that the version that shows all markup is impossible to read – I made so many changes.
I will proofread the text once again.
Details:
-- I now provide a much more detailed view of irony in its different senses, based mainly on Rorty and then Hegel. Rorty is a kind of Hegelian anyway. I elaborate on tragedy (as opposed to disaster) and tragic irony. I also discuss dialectics and literary criticism. This paper is now much more sophisticated.
-- All my dictionary definitions are eliminated, except Cuddon (whom I criticize).
-- I provide new and detailed reasons for calling tragedy ironic. The idea is no longer merely intuitive.
-- I have clarified the idea of a world-historical individual. I do NOT want to say they all fail (think of Stalin’s successes). I say when/if they fail, the situation is tragic and ironic.
-- The end of history. The critical point is well-taken, I agree. I have made it clear when I mean Zweck or Ende.
-- “Do we learn something valuable” in Ch. 2. I have addressed the issue in several places, esp. at the beginning of Ch.2.
-- Last question. I answer: I originally hoped to write a brief and simple Ch. 1 and focus on Ch. 2 and 3, but the referees insisted that I make the theoretical Ch. 1 much more detailed. And all 3 Refs, wanted elaborations they saw as important, therefore paper was impossible to simplify.
I hope the paper is much better now!
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The author has considered all the points from the previous review and brought them into the paper in an excellent manner. I therefore agree without reservation to the publication of the paper.
Author Response
thank you very much!
Reviewer 2 Report
The author has made considerable improvements to the first section of the article that establish a clearer overall framework and define the various types of irony in more useful fashion. The additional discussion of Rorty (and inclusion of relevant secondary literature in the notes, though it would even better to engage this work directly), especially in relation to Hegel, has further strengthened the account.
To my mind, two further improvements are needed for this piece to realize its full promise. The first is that the third section (I would suggest referring to these as "sections" rather than "chapters") needs to be updated to reflect the new overall framing and clarified aims so that the author's ultimate contribution is conveyed. If the overall aim of the piece indeed is to My aim is to "redescribe real-life conflicts by using the dialectical understanding of irony and tragedy" and to "apply their theories of identity [or Rorty and Hegel] to real tragedies," then what is the payoff of this analysis? Do we learn anything new about Rorty and/or Hegel and their conceptions of irony and identity? What needs to be conveyed in third or a concluding section is" what ultimately is the contribution of this essay to existing knowledge?
The second thing, related to the first, is that the apparently additional aim of validating a conception of dialectical literary criticism needs to be clarified and made central to the essay's central claims and argument, or possibly omitted. In a new paragraph the author states that "The last chapter offers some philosophical ideas of controversy and debate, essential as these are to dialectical literary criticism." However, the connection between this notion of literary criticism and the author's separate claims about irony and tragedy have not yet been integrated in a direct way.
It seems that the only frame for understanding this conception of literary criticism is Rorty's. If a defense of this conception of literary criticism is central to the essay's contribution, some additional grounding in existing scholarship is needed to contextualize it -- either from work on literary criticism more generally or on Rorty and literary criticism in particular. This line of argument, assuming it remains central, also needs to be collected and explained in a coherent way in the essay's conclusion.
See for example:
Leypoldt, Günther. “Uses of Metaphor: Richard Rorty’s Literary Criticism and the Poetics of World-Making.” New Literary History 39, no. 1 (2008): 145–63. Gaskill, Nicholas M. “Experience and Signs: Towards a Pragmatist Literary Criticism.” New Literary History 39, no. 1 (2008): 165–83. The special issue of Pragmatism Today on pragmatism and literature (v. 2, no. 2; 2011) The work of Ulf Schulenberg on Rorty and literary criticism.
Author Response
I have added the additional references to literary criticism to the notes.
REF2 asks: then what is the payoff of this analysis? Do we learn anything new about Rorty and/or Hegel and their conceptions of irony and identity? What needs to be conveyed in third or a concluding section is" what ultimately is the contribution of this essay to existing knowledge?
I have added a clarification at the end of the paper, see also the beginning of Part 3.
I want to protest against the following: "However, the connection between this notion of literary criticism and the author's separate claims about irony and tragedy have not yet been integrated in a direct way."
Irony and tragedy are certainly connected in the strongest possible way. And the idea of tragedy depends on how we read the relevant text, as I show in the Third Part, and confirm in the additional chapters in the end. When we use a different vocabulary, we see ironies emerge, and therefore tragedies -- this is what I show in the second part. (See beginning of Part 3).
I have added a summary at the end of the paper. I cannot rewrite all the text at this late stage.
I wanted to write a simple, short paper, but obviously, this was impossible. The three Refs all wanted me to go in different directions with the First Part, and thus I was forced to expand but also make compromises.
Ref2 writes: However, the connection between this notion of literary criticism and the author's separate claims about irony and tragedy have not yet been integrated directly.
See the addittional paras at the end of the paper.
Reviewer 3 Report
This is a significant improvement on the first version of the paper. The author presents a much clearer account of the idea of irony on which their account depends, and the paper is much stronger for it.
I will note only a few continuing issues with the author's account of Hegel's philosophy of history. First, the author uses the idea of irony to interpret Hegel's writings on history, but does not address Hegel's actual discussions of irony (in the Philosophy of Right or Lectures on Aesthetics) or tragedy (in the Aesthetics, or Phenomenology of Spirit). Second, the author does not engage significantly with existing scholarship on Hegel's philosophy of history. Third, the author clarifies the notion of a purpose in history, but does not identify this purpose as Hegel does, namely as freedom. This point is, I think, a significant one. Hegel does think that we can identify whether freedom has been realized in history aside from the question of whether history has reached an end (Ende). In addition, the author's main suggestion is that the achievement of the purpose of history's primary implications have to do with the complexity of historical developments and the fact that they can be approached from a variety of perspectives. But this is very different from saying that history has achieved the goal of realizing freedom.
The paper needs a copy edit for English grammar.
Author Response
Here are my abbreviations of the Ref's critical comments and my comments to them:
First, the A does not address Hegel's actual discussions of irony (in the Philosophy of Right or Lectures on Aesthetics) or tragedy (in the Aesthetics, or Phenomenology of Spirit).
Answer: I cannot do this without making the paper much too long and complicated. Moreover, the other two Refs insist that I develop a Rortyan notion of irony in close connection to Hegel, and this determined the notion of irony I use. Originally, I only wanted to utilize Hegel's idea of the cunning of historical reason. But the Refs wanted me to complicate the issue. -- I have added (in red) some very brief clarifying comments in the text and notes. Tragedy is another wide topic, but in this paper, I offer my own, simple definition that serves the purposes of my main argument.
Second, the author does not engage significantly with existing scholarship on Hegel's philosophy of history.
A: Again, Hegel is not the main topic of the paper, so I must be brief and selective. But I have now added additional references.
Third, the author clarifies the notion of a purpose in history but does not identify this purpose as Hegel does, namely freedom. This point is, I think, a significant one. Hegel does think that we can identify whether freedom has been realized in history aside from the question of whether history has reached an end (Ende). In addition, the author's main suggestion is that the achievement of the purpose of history's primary implications has to do with the complexity of historical developments and the fact that they can be approached from a variety of perspectives. But this is very different from saying that history has achieved the goal of realizing freedom.
A: I say clearly that the purpose of history according to Hegel is. I now say that in this paper history is not teleological but yet shows how the cunning of reason works (in the second part). And the cunning of reason makes history ironic.
I distinguish clearly between Ende and Zweck.
I may also add in my youth I wrote several papers on Hegel's Philosophy of Right, etc. (never touched the Phenomenology).
In the end, I want to say that the three Refs required many additions and alternative approaches that I could not make them all. It is too easy to ruin a paper by adding too much to its main line of argument. The first part is already too heavy, and I cannot make it any heavier.
