Abstract

Irony is considered as a form of negative attitude of a man to-wards reality. Three evolutionary forms of irony have been distinguished – the antique, the romantic and the postmodern. It is shown that in the course of development of irony the scope of its criticism has expanded. The scope of antique irony is the erudite, that of the romantic irony is the erudite and the aesthete and the scope of postmodern irony is the erudite, the aesthete and the user. Two philosophical anthropological senses of irony have been revealed. First, irony fixes dangerous existence as a stray one, sec-ondly, irony introduces the strategy of achieving a safe existence by a man, which is reduced to the actions of recovery.