ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I use Cicero’s Philippics to test three theories of irony put forth by cognitive scientists. I argue that each theory has much to contribute to our appreciation of classical texts. In developing pragmatics, Grice has argued that irony consists of violating the most important unwritten rule of communication – tell the truth – and yet it does not imply lying, for the context invites an audience to discover a non-literal meaning in the (literally untrue) utterance. In their refusal of pragmatics, Sperber and Wilson forged relevance theory: unlike Grice, they take an ironic statement literally: it means what it says, but functions as an allusion to an unfulfilled reality and thus expresses disappointment at a cheated expectation. Somewhat salvaging the Gricean model, Clark and Garrig have proposed the pretense theory: in producing an ironic utterance a speaker does not mean what is said, but s/he pretends to be uninformed, and this pretense splits the audience; some see through it and become part of the inner circle, but some others do not and are left out. These models allow me to account for various passages from the Philippics, where irony is evident but evidently falls beyond the definitions provided by ancient manuals of rhetoric.
