“A Necessary Shadow of Being”: Irony, Imagination, and Personal Identity

This is the second of essays on existential-ontological ground otherness, in which we see this as essentially entwined with our personhood and personal identities. We analyze irony both a “mechanism” constituting these very identities an act revealing their self-altering nature. Irony view — informed by Kierkegaard, phenomenology, psychoanalysis subtle existential strategy means subjectivity (not “the subject”) not only asserts itself, but also, much more importantly, initiates open-ended process self-actualization self-formation. Irony, present it, at once form defensive response against “absolute” character reality comparably “absolutist” aspirations individual. Such responses open up space negotiation between among forces, creative interplay. In doing so can be constitutive for they disruptive. The disruption does undermine (apparently) unshakeable forms self-understanding. More radically, puts stage “alternative identities,” those have to confront ourselves, whether negative mode repression, or acts positive, even playful, recognition. way reveals articulates otherness heart subjectivity.