Romantic irony and cybernetic irony: two epochal manifestations

Abstract

This essay exercises a philosophical comparison between two epochal manifestations of irony. On the one hand, romantic irony, conceptualized by Friedrich Schlegel during the Frühromantik era; and on the other, the ‘cybernetic irony’, coined by Peter Sloterdijk as a therapeutic correlate on the Luhmannian theory of social systems.