A Philosophical Analysis of Humor in Two Parts;Containing a Tentative Proposal Towards a Phenomenology of Humor

Author: Christopher DeVeau

Table of Contents

Introduction (p.3)

Chapter 1: What Do We Find Funny? (p.5)

Chapter 2: Why Do We Find Things Funny At All? (p.30)

Bibliography (p43)

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Introduction

My intention in this dissertation is to answer two questions. The first

question being; “What do we find funny?” and the second, “Why do we

find things funny at all?”

To the extent that I arrive at an answer to the second question, I do so

by way of a detour into a third; “What is it to find something funny?”

The structure of this dissertation being dictated by these questions, it

has been divided into two chapters, entitled respectively “What do we

find Funny?” and “Why do we find anything funny?”

Before we begin, I want to clarify some of the vocabulary I’m going to

use.

It is obvious that there is a distinction to be made between ‘laughter’,

‘humor’, and ‘mirth’. In fact in most works on the philosophy of humor

exactly just such a distinction is typically made. The particular definitions

employed differ philosopher to philosopher, but usually they resemble

something along the following lines: laughter is defined as the outward

expression of an internal feeling of mirth; Mirth, in turn, is defined as the

private internal experience of humor; and Humor is defined as the

feature of things by which we identify them as funny.

Some philosophers go one step further in the direction of divorcing

‘laughter’ from ‘humor’, and talk of laughter simply as phenomenon

worthy of analysis in and of itself.

While I myself found no profit in this latter notion, I occasionally found it

impossible to discuss certain theories without it. Thus, for the most part

the word ‘laughter’ and its derivatives are used here in their traditional

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sense (as indicative of an inward feeling of mirth), though there are

some instances where I use these same words in the stricter sense (in

which no such relation is hypothesized). Where this occurs I will make

every effort to make the distinction clear.

All that said, we may begin.

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What Do We Find Funny?

The purpose of this chapter of our investigation is to delineate the

boundaries of the humorous with a view towards explaining in the next

chapter, both why these particular things elicit such an enigmatic feeling

in us, and why we have the capacity for such a feeling in the first place.

While I fully intend to give ample space to a variety of competing

theories, I feel I should make it admit from the outset that my analysis of

many of them will be antagonistic and comparative relative to the

theory I think best explains the phenomena, namely, the Incongruity

Theory of humor. This is not to suggest that I will in any way be assuming

the truth of the Incongruity Theory, but only that this investigation will

be conducted with the expectation that we will ultimately arrive at a

notion of humor which is most compatible with a revised and amended

version of the Incongruity hypothesis.

Not to jump the gun here, but we might benefit at this point from a brief

synopsis of the theory I hope to have demonstrated by the end of this

chapter. My basic thesis at this point is a hybrid of what I will refer to

from here on as the Bergsonian Rigidity Thesis, and the particular

version of the Incongruity theory advanced by Hurley, Dennett, and

Adams in their work “Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the

Mind”1. Specifically, I maintain that what really makes us piss our pants

1 Hurley, Matthew M., Dennett, Daniel C., & Adams, Reginald B. “Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer The Mind” (MIT 2011)

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is not, as has been elsewhere claimed, a sense of superiority to the

object of humor, or an appreciation of the breaking of a cultural taboo,

but the revelation of rigidity where plasticity is called for. Less

enigmatically, we might say, with Bergson, that;

“What life and society require of each of us is a constantly alert attention

that discerns the outlines of the present situation, together with a certain

elasticity of mind and body to enable us to adapt ourselves in

consequence… rigidity is the comic.”2

The notion of ‘Rigidity of Being’ (which we may define now as ‘the

habitual, thoughtless, belligerent, or otherwise rigid direction of ones

actions, thoughts, feelings, or expectations relative to an acquired rule,

category, or conceptual framework which is not, or at least is no longer,

in proper conformity with one’s actual environment. Asyntony, to coin a

word.) will have become a familiar one by the time this investigation is

through, and it is my hope that this concept, employed in conjunction

with Dennett et al’s notion of conceptual frameworks, will provide us

with the necessary vocabulary with which to properly describe and

explain the nature of Humor.

Though there are many problems yet to be addressed, we shall leave

these for later, and begin now with a brief survey of the field. Both this

chapter and the next will begin with a similar structure; in both instances

I will start by looking towards established theories of humor for an

answer to our questions, looking to test their particular hypotheses and

explanatory power against both each other and pre-theoretical

2 Bergson, Henri, “Laughter” ch.1 Sec.II, tr. Cloudesley Brereton & Fred Rothwell (London, 1935)

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examples of the humorous, hoping in this manner maybe to salvage

something of use for ourselves later on, when we move on to less

tedious matters.

The theories of humor which we will be looking at in greatest detail over

the course of this investigation are;

1) The Play Theory

2) The Superiority Theory

3) The Relief Theory

4) Benign-Violation Theory, and

5) Incongruity Theory

And so, with regard to the question of what exactly we find funny,

without further ado;

Play Theory:

Play Theory holds that there exists a fundamental connection between

play (most commonly represented in this type of theory by tickling and

play-fighting as opposed to, say, backgammon) and laughter or humor.

This hypothesis has remained largely unshaken since it was first

advanced in the latter half of the 19th century, and not without good

reason. To understand this we must note a distinction amongst Play

theorists; those who are content to cite a connection between laughter

and play (hereafter referred to as Lesser Play Theory), and those who

claim a connection between humor and play (hereafter referred to as

Greater Play Theory). The distinction, in this instance, couldn’t be more

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important. The relationship between laughter and play is, on its face,

obvious, if only in that they coincide so often as to render absurd any

doubt as to their interlockedness. In so far as Lesser Play Theory is

committed to claims and predictions about laughter in itself it is

seemingly on solid ground; only when it takes the next logical step

towards making statements about that laughter as an external indicator

of the subjects hypothesized internal experience of mirth does Play

Theory run aground.

To begin with, this theory is spectacularly ill-suited to talk of ‘mirth’,

assuming we limit ourselves in this instance to a definition of ‘mirth’ as a

private internal experience of humor (and, in this instance, we would

have good reason to do so, for should we expand our definition to allow

talk of mirth as a social phenomenon observable in a community at play,

we might just as well be talking about laughter and associated

behaviours, and once again we’re back to the Lesser Play theory).

Hypothetically a Play Theory of sufficient substance might be able to tell

us something of what we laugh at and when we laugh at it, but only

pursuant to a broader theory of what constitutes the nature of play

itself; without such an expansion, and taken on its own (that is to say,

when not assumed under the auspices of a broader theory of laughter

and humor, like Incongruity or Superiority) it has little more to say than

that play and laughter are often observed to coincide, and that laughter

might serve to indicate and communicate the continued existence of

conditions amenable to play-activity (laughter indicating safety and

friendliness).

In truth this kind of theory can’t tell us much about the ‘what’ or ‘when’

of it at all. Play Theory on its own is vacuous. The contention of Play

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Theorists is not that “play is humor or laughter, but simply that [both]

evolved out of play and [have] thus maintained [a] similar expression”3.

An interesting hypothesis for sure, and one which, depending on one’s

particular conception of the nature of play, could be interpreted as

embryonic of many more comprehensive theories of humor, but also

one for which, lacking further elucidation as to the nature of play,

counter-examples abound.

I don’t want to bore anyone with an unending list of such examples,

instances of humor which balk at description by Greater Play Theory

(think ‘Schadenfreude in comedic literature’ and you’ll get the drift), but

suffice it to say that Play Theory has little to offer us. It is beyond

contention that humans (and possibly some higher primates) have been

observed to laugh during play, and while this is certainly an observation

which must be accounted for by any more substantive theory claiming

an exhaustive description and explanation of humor, we must look

elsewhere for the answer to our question.

Superiority Theory:

The Superiority Theory is unique humor theories in that its descriptive

element is almost indistinguishable from its explanatory element. It is,

for the most part, reducible to the claim that all instances of mirth imply

a value judgement conferred by the subject upon the object of humor,

no matter whether this judgement hidden or obvious. As the name

suggests, this cannot be just any kind of value judgement. If it is to have

any hope of producing mirth the judgement must not only be a negative

3 Hurley, Matthew M., Dennett, Daniel C., & Adams, Reginald B. “Inside Jokes” p.39 (MIT 2011)

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one, but must also be sufficiently negative as to relegate the object to a

position of inferiority relative to the subject, who is herself now

presumably laughing. We laugh at what is beneath us, and which in so

being, reminds us of our respective loftiness.

This theory is intimately connected with the notion of one’s ‘laughing at’

or ‘laughing with’ another, maintaining that whether we laugh with

others or not there must always be a butt, not just for every joke, but for

every laugh and every quiet instance of mirth as well. It should come as

little surprise then that of all the myriad theories of humor this one

happened to be the personal favourite of Thomas Hobbes, whose

measure of the humanity he saw around him was seemingly such that

they would find humour “by the apprehension of some deformed thing

in another, by comparison whereof they suddenly applaud themselves”4.

It must be said that, in spite of its vulgarity, this theory is impressive; its

descriptive power (as a reflection of its explanatory power) is robust,

especially if we accept Bergson’s assertion that when objects (that is to

say, literal objects; hats and home appliances and what not) are found to

be humorous, this is only to the extent that we anthropomorphize them

or consider them as products of the caprice of the people we imagine

fashioned them.

How often, after all, do we take as our object of humor the folly of

others?

Upon closer scrutiny, however, cracks do begin to appear. No sooner

does one turn on the television (or go outside for that matter, if you’ll

excuse some casual misanthropy) than one is assailed by people over

4 Hobbes, Thomas “Leviathan” Part 1, ch.6, p.125 (Penguin, 1985)

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whom one could assume an air of superiority, but who elicit no mirth at

all. Traditional criticism of the Superiority Theory which follows along

these lines has an unfortunate habit of singling out the poor as an

example of such people (to each era its own brand of bigotry and

condescension), but for our own purposes I think we may justifiably take

those who have committed some particularly heinous moral violation as

our counter-example. The ethics of considering oneself superior to a

fellow human being, no matter what the circumstances, are certainly an

open question, but such questions are for the moment not our concern.

I doubt there are many among us who, when confronted in our homes

with the image of a particularly heinous criminal facing trial for their

crimes, do not at least once in a while experience some sense of

personal superiority (or, at the very least, a sense of being confronted

with moral inferiority), and yet there could hardly be anything more out

of place in such an instance than the impulse to laugh.

We must also wonder what the Superiority Theorist is to make of those

whose intention it is to make us laugh. Are we to suppose that when we

laugh at a stand-up comedian that we are quite literally laughing at her,

in the sense opposed to laughing with somebody? This seems

unnecessarily severe, to say the least.

It would seem then, that whatever the Superiority theory has going for

it, and while we cannot yet definitively rule out superiority as a

necessary condition of mirth, we may say with some confidence that it is

certainly not a sufficient condition.

To rule out Superiority’s being even a necessary condition we can look to

the work of John Morreall, who tells us that;

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“In an experiment by Lambert Deckers, subjects were asked to lift a

series of weights that looked identical. The first several did weigh the

same, but then the unsuspecting subjects picked up one that was much

heavier or lighter, whereupon they laughed. In laughing, they did not

seem to compare themselves with anyone.”5

We should take caution here, having already noted the need for

vigilance with regard to equating laughter with humor or mirth, but at

first glance this does look like a valid counter-example to the Superiority

Theory.

We shall leave this question (Superiority as necessary condition of mirth)

here for the time being, expecting to shed more light on it when we

return to this theory in the next chapter to examine its claim to

explanatory power.

Relief Theory:

The most widely known version of the Relief Theory of humor is

probably the one advanced by Sigmund Freud, though the basic

elements of it may be traced back through various instantiations to Lord

Shaftesbury’s essay of 1709, “An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and

Humor”; incidentally the first essay in which the word ‘humor’ is used in

reference to the comic. The theory developed significantly over the

following 200 years alongside advances in our understanding of the

nervous system.

5 Morreall, John “No Laughing Matter”, p.9 (Blackwell, 2009)

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At its core the theory is easy to comprehend; it concerns itself with

humor insofar as it may be divided into what are sometimes referred to

as ‘laughter situations’, maintaining that laughter is the release of pent

up energy accrued for a different purpose which was subsequently

aborted. Already we may note an objection, in that this theory’s

equating of laughter and humor seems to suggest that humorous

situations from which there follow no laughter are not really humorous

situations at all. We will put a pin in this for the moment, but suffice it to

say this is a serious objection, and one which the Relief Theorists may

well be unequipped to deal with.

The precise nature of the nervous energy that must be dispersed differs

theory to theory, and I have no desire to get bogged down in the

cumbersome vernacular of Psycho-analysis (it being in any case

superfluous to our intentions) but we may note that it most commonly

takes the form either of energy summoned to repress an undesirable or

abortive thought or feeling, energy which was to be engaged in the

process of thinking, or energy which had been intended for the

expression of some emotion.

With regard to what we find funny then, we may summarize the Relief

Theorist’s position as such; we laugh at that which arouses in us an

intellectual or emotional expectancy which is subsequently aborted.

This theory is certainly not without advantage. For one, it provides

equally well for humor of both the intentional and unintentional variety;

far better, at least, than the Superiority Theory.

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Unfortunately we need look no further than the most banal counter-

examples to see that this theory simply holds no water. Once again, John

Morreall can help us out here;

“Funny things and situations may evoke emotions, but many seem not

to. Consider P. G. Wodehouse's line “If it's feasible, let's fease it.”

Or the shortest poem in the English language, by Strickland Gillilan

(1927),

“Lines on the Antiquity of Microbes”:

Adam

Had'em.

These do not seem to vent emotions that had built up before we read

them, and they do not seem to evoke emotions and then render them

superfluous.”6

Three theories in and, with regard to the nature of what we laugh at,

we are no wiser than when be began. However, before we leave the

Relief Theory behind entirely, we should take note of some historical

foreshadowing here. The notion of disappointed expectations, albeit in

the embryonic form of ‘nervous energy’, is somewhat reminiscent of the

mechanism that we will see employed by the Incongruity theorists.

The Relief Theory fell to the first counter-examples proposed, but as we

will see the Incongruity theory proves much more robust.

6 Morreall, John, "Philosophy of Humor", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/entries/humor/>.

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To understand why this is, it might be edifying to consider a theory

which, though technically the newest of the theories here discussed,

might serve us as a bridge from Relief Theory to Incongruity Theory.

Benign Violation Theory:

Benign Violation Theory identifies three distinct elements which it claims

are individually necessary, and collectively sufficient to bring about

humor. These are;

1) That the object of humor in some way violate a norm, whether

moral, cultural, linguistic, or of any other variety. We may

recognize this criterion from our examination of the Superiority

Theory, where the reason for one’s feeling superior to the object

of humor often consisted in the object’s violation of some social

norm as it pertained to our understanding of ‘living well’.

2) That the humor occurs in a context which is considered safe. This

criterion is strangely reminiscent of the Play Theory of humor we

were looking at earlier. This is no coincidence. If it strikes you that

this second criterion seems to contradict the first, you’re not

wrong. In fact the third element necessary to the production of

humor is exactly;

3) That these two elements occur simultaneously. In other words,

the third criterion is precisely the glaring incongruity of the first

two.

One could be forgiven for finding this a little confusing. We have here

three elements, each (at least partially) representative of a different

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humor theory; Violation (Superiority Theory), a safe/benign context

(Play Theory), and the incongruity evident between the violation and the

benign context in which it occurs (Incongruity theory).

In the words of this theory’s creators and strongest advocates;

“The benign-violation hypothesis suggests that anything that is

threatening to one’s sense of how the world “ought to be” will be

humorous, as long as the threatening situation also seems benign”7

In the next chapter we will take a closer look at why this might be, but

for our present purposes we need only note that according to this

theory, what is ‘funny’ consists in a ‘benign’ violation of an accepted

norm.

McGraw and Warren stipulate three further criteria, by which the

violation of a norm may be perceived as benign. These are;

a) The existence of alternative norms such that, though one norm is

violated, there may be another that casts the violation in a more

congenial light

b) An insufficient level of commitment to the violated norm, such

that those “who are more weakly committed to [the] norm can

recognize the violation but are less likely to be threatened or to

directly experience the violation’s repercussions”8.

c) Psychological distance from the violated norm. This distance could

come in a variety of different forms (temporal, spatial, social, etc.),

7 McGraw, A. Peter & Warren, Caleb “Benign Violations: Making Immoral Behaviour Funny”, p.2, published in Psychological Science, 29th June, 20108 Ibid, p.5

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and might best be understood as more rigorously scientific

paraphrasing of the old Mel Brooks line: “Tragedy is when I cut my

finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.”

All this makes for a very attractive theory. While McGraw and Warren

primarily concern themselves with benign moral violations, it is easy to

see how benign violations of semantic or grammatical norms, norms of

decorum, cultural norms, etc. could be employed as descriptors of a

whole host of comic tropes. In fact the number and diversity of norms

could itself explain the diversity of humor, both intra and extra-

culturally. We might even go so far as to hypothesize comedic norms as

an explanation for the phenomenon of meta-humor; jokes about jokes.

Not only is this theory compatible with Play Theory, Superiority Theory,

and Relief Theory (compatible in this latter instance by way of its

equating ‘expectations’ with ‘norms’, or we might say, perhaps more

palatably, by asserting that expectations are often only expectations

precisely relative to established norms), to say nothing of Incongruity

Theory, it actually assimilates them, constructing from them a broader

more inclusive theory of humor.

We do ourselves no disservice at this point in our investigation by

accepting the thesis of Benign Violation Theory as entirely plausible, if

not yet proven.

Let us continue our survey for the time being.

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Incongruity Theory:

We turn finally to the Incongruity Theory, perhaps the most popular

philosophical theory of humor of our era. Again we must note the need

for caution here; as Morreall tells us, the term ‘Incongruity Theory’ is not

so much a title assumed by a group of like minded thinkers as it is a

‘term of art’ used to identify a particular element common to a number

of theories which otherwise differ in significant respects.

This is not, however, to suggest that the term is prohibitively vague. To

illustrate this, consider the fact that the idea of the ‘disappointed

expectation’ (which we encountered as an element in the Relief Theory)

bears a close resemblance to the notion of incongruence. In fact, the

very same notion turns up in the writings of Immanuel Kant, one of the

more widely read Incongruity Theorists;

“In everything that is to excite a lively convulsive laugh there must be

something absurd (in which the understanding can therefore find no

satisfaction). Laughter is an affection arising from the sudden

transformation of a strained expectation into nothing.”9

The correspondence is striking, so much so that this example will serve

us well in identifying the boundaries of the Incongruity Theory.

Thankfully the distinction between these two theories is not too difficult

to locate; where the Relief Theorists posit a complex mechanism by

which nervous energy is built up with the expectation of being put to

some specific work, resulting in a ‘venting’ of this nervous energy as

what we call laughter or humor when the expectation is subsequently

9 Kant, Immanuel “Critique of Judgement” Part 1, sec 54, tr. James Creed Meredith (Oxford, 1911)

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disappointed by an incongruity that is incompatible with the expected

outcome, the Incongruity Theorist employs a much simpler conception

of humor. Michael Clark has described the necessary and sufficient

conditions for humor under an Incongruity Theory thusly;

1) A person perceives (thinks, imagines) an object as being

incongruous

2) The person enjoys perceiving (thinking imagining) the object

3) The person enjoys the perceived (thought, imagined) incongruity

at least partly for itself rather than solely for some ulterior

reason.10

While Clark’s description is far from Gospel (The number and diversity of

Incongruity Theories precludes any attempt at an all-inclusive definition),

and one might reasonably take issue with the notion that enjoyment is a

necessary condition of humor, still, the third criteria gives us some sense

of what distinguishes an Incongruity Theory; that the incongruity in

question is appreciated as a phenomenon in and of itself.

Once again, we will leave aside for the time being any question of why

incongruity might elicit humor in us, and consider instead if this

description matches up with the facts.

Immediately it is obvious that it does not, or at least, not without some

further fine tuning.

We frequently encounter incongruities which produce not the slightest

hint of mirth in us; religious allegory often abounds with such cases. For

our purposes we may be content with the Christian story of the loaves

10 Clark, Michael, “Humor and Incongruity” in “The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor”, ed. John Morreall, p.139 (New York, 1987)

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and the fishes; where in all of literature is there a greater incongruity

than this sating of a multitude with a morsel?

We might have recourse to Clark’s notion that some (perhaps peculiar)

form of enjoyment plays a role, but it is hard to conceive of this as

anything other than detrimental; as we have seen, one of Benign

Violation Theory’s greatest accomplishments is allowing for humor to

emerge from unpleasant (though innocuous) phenomena, in the form of

violated norms. We need only nod in the direction of a whole sub-genre

of The Comic, dark humor, to see that an over-emphasis of that which is

pleasant in humor will only do harm to the Incongruity Theory. One

might argue for the possibility of our enjoying what is unpleasant of

course, but this can only be an abuse of language.

A common claim is that in order for an incongruity to be appreciated as

funny it must first be resolved. This is a promising notion, though the

diversity of Incongruity Theories will make it difficult to establish with

any degree of historical specificity what exactly is meant here by

‘resolution’. Some theorists might say that the resolution is arrived at by

way of an ambiguity which forces one to acknowledge a previously

unconsidered interpretation of the object of humor; others that an

incongruity established between expectation and reality is resolved by

logic (and we all know what a party logic can be).

Regardless of what the exact nature of the resolution may be, I think we

can confidently take on board this addendum to the Incongruity Theory.

As has been noted by many writers on the subject, without a resolution

clause, Incongruity Theory is incapable of differentiating comedy from

stage-magic, unfinished rubix cubes, or just plain old confusion.

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For the time being we will be content with the notion that what we

laugh at is an incongruity which has been resolved in some manner.

From here on out this revised variation on the theory will be referred to

as Incongruity Resolution Theory, or I.R. Theory for short.

Looking to McGraw and Warren’s work on Benign Violation Theory for

counter-examples, we can see that under this schema, instances of

humorous norm violation in which the humor was attributed to either

insufficient commitment to, or sufficient psychological distance from,

the violated norm, would here have to be accounted for in terms of

incongruity resolution; neither of these things themselves constituting a

resolution of the violation.

It is interesting to note that the idea of already existing alternative

norms, which we saw put to use in Benign Violation Theory, does seem a

fitting description of the kind of resolution we’re looking for. It is with

this in mind that I suggest that resolution by way of conflicting norms is

in fact exactly what underlies the Benign Violation Theory of humor, and

that the notions of psychological distance and insufficient commitment

are simply facilitating criteria.

The possibility of one’s appreciating the existence of alternative norms is

a product of one’s being sufficiently psychologically distant and

uncommitted to the violated norm in question; in this way Benign

Violation Theory, thus far our most promising theory, appears to be

reducible to an Incongruity-Resolution Theory of humor.

As counter-examples go these are of course nowhere near exhaustive,

but we may feel some confidence in saying that our amended and re-

branded I.R. Theory, (which we can define now as the claim that we

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laugh at appreciated and resolved incongruities), seems to stand on its

own two feet.

I feel we can improve upon this, however. As promised at the outset, I

wish to conclude this chapter with my own hypothesis as to the nature

of the humorous, one heavily influenced by the Bergsonian Rigidity

Thesis as well as Dennett et al’s conceptual framework based theory

interpreted here as a modern, neuro-scientifically educated restatement

of Schopenhauer’s Incongruity Theory.

One of the more puzzling accidents in the history of the philosophy of

humor is Bergson’s branding as a Superiority Theorist. This is almost

certainly a result of his stipulation that laughter serves as a corrective

force with respect to aberrant behaviour, a feature quite obviously

reminiscent of certain variations on the Superiority Theory. However, it

is my opinion that the object Bergson identifies as the source of humor

places him firmly inside the bounds of Incongruity Theory. As stated at

the outset of our investigation, Bergson locates humor in the perception

of behavioural rigidity where plasticity is called for. This stands in need

of clarification.

Bergson’s thesis is this; that life is a fluid thing, demanding of us who

partake of it that we constantly react and adapt to fit its ever changing

contours. ‘Rigidity of Being’ sets in when we fail to adequately adapt to

the demands of changing realities, instead opting to habitually,

thoughtlessly, belligerently, or otherwise rigidly and asyntonously follow

a rule of conduct which has served us well in the past but which may

now be inappropriate. ‘The Comic’ is when one when comes to

catastrophe as a result of this asyntony, thus revealing a previously

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hidden incongruity between the image of the world one has in one’s

head, and the actual world in which one is walking around.

This, itself quite rigid, statement of the theory is open to some obvious

objections from counter-example, but not wishing to get bogged down

here, I trust the reader to see how any such objections can be answered

by recourse to an appropriation of the vocabulary employed in the

Benign Violation Theory (for instance, we might go along with the

Benign Violationists in supposing that puns are explicable in terms of a

benign violation of a semantic norm; Making use of the Bergsonian

Rigidity Thesis we can see that one possible way of looking at this is as

the unthinking application of a learned semantic rule in a situation

where it turns out to be unsuited).

The considerable scope of the Bergsonian Rigidity Thesis will perhaps

be made clear if we consider its compatibility with Schopenhauer’s

version of the Incongruity Theory.

In Schopenhauer’s own words;

“My theory of the ludicrous also depends on the contrast which I have…

so forcibly stressed, between representations of perception and abstract

representations”.11

Schopenhauer located The Comic in the incongruity between our sense

perceptions of objects in the world and our abstract conceptual

knowledge about those same objects. We find a positively ingenious

example of this in Morreall, who identifies an incongruity between our

11 Schopenhauer, Arthur, “On the Theory of The Ludicrous”, “World as Will and Representation” Vol.II, Tr. E. Payne (New York, 1969)

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sensory experience of a world positively filled with unique objects of

perception, and the societal impetus to categorize these things by their

common elements so as to facilitate generalization, communication, and

the making of rational predictions; the result is a bevy of conceptual

categories all of which individually contain a diverse range of elements.

Morreall’s takes as his example the word ‘dog’, an abstract conceptual

category which contains individual elements as diverse as the Chihuahua

and the St. Bernard.

Reframing this in the context of the Bergsonian Rigidity Thesis, one

might imagine two separate occasions; one, in which the lumping

together of the Chihuahua and the St. Bernard into the conceptual

category ‘dog’ makes for a useful conceptual tool which may be handily

employ in one’s decision making (“what sort of food should I purchase

for this animal?”, for example); and another occasion in which the same

lumping together of these two animals into the same conceptual

category results in disastrous consequences for one’s ability to make

rational decisions (“Is my food safe from the dog on this low lying

table?”, for instance). Application of the same categorical conceptual

tool in the latter case as in the former would indicate Rigidity of Being,

and would therefore, according to our theory, be humorous.

To be only marginally less pedantic about it; treating a small dog and a

big dog equally and without due regard for their difference in size just

because you consider them two separate instantiations of the same

thing (‘dogs’), may lead you to gaiety.

To close out this section of our investigation, and so solidify our

position against some objections and counter-examples, we need to

24

make one amendment, and acknowledge some deviations we have

already made from Bergson’s own writing on the subject of his Rigidity

Thesis.

To the extent that we have succeeded in finding some important

common ground between the Bergsonian Rigidity Thesis and

Schopenhauer’s Incongruity Theory, we have also opened ourselves up

to the objection that we have rooted ourselves too firmly in the

intellectual. There is very little to be found of conceptual categories in

the instance of a man slipping on a banana peel, and yet this is one of

the most familiar comedic tropes of all time. To amend this we will need

to appeal to the theory of conceptual frameworks, or mental spaces,

advanced by Dennett et al in their book “Inside Jokes”.

Their theory is littered with neuro-scientific debris, almost all of which

we are prevented from unpacking here for reasons of simple economy

(not to worry, it’s all quite superfluous anyway), but let it suffice to say

that their theory involves the habitual construction of ‘mental spaces’.

For our purposes these mental spaces are effectively synonymous with

complex conceptual frameworks, the purpose of which, much like the

conceptual categories we looked at not a moment ago, are to facilitate

prediction, generalization, and communication. In effect, a conceptual

framework is the mechanism by which we represent the world to

ourselves, as well as the device we use to interpret it in real time.

According to this theory we possess a variety of different conceptual

frameworks relative to different scenarios and occasions (the exact

manner in which these frameworks would be delineated is hard to

assess, particularly with regard to hierarchy and degree of detail, but it is

safe to say that they would be constructed from a tension between

25

conflicting impetuses towards specificity and generality; we might

imagine a conceptual framework for ‘eating in a restaurant’, for

example, or another for ‘driving a car’, which would presumably contain

elements such as the learned rules of the road).

Humor, then, is the occasion of an incongruity being revealed between

the conceptual framework we use to comprehend a given situation, and

the reality of that situation; or in the terms of the Bergsonian Rigidity

Thesis: the habitual, thoughtless, belligerent, or otherwise rigid and

asyntonous application of a conceptual framework in a situation where

it is unfit prior to amendment. That is to say, ploughing ahead with one’s

ready-made conceptual framework for ‘walking down main-street’, a

framework which contains no errant banana peels, and only reassessing

said conceptual framework after you’ve already slipped and fallen on

one.

The fluidity of life demands of us that we constantly measure our

conceptual frameworks against reality. We may only neglect this duty

for so long before reality shows up to take advantage of our Rigidity of

Being and knock us flat on our ass.

Thus the amendment we must make to our earlier combining of

Schopenhauer’s Incongruity Theory and the Bergsonian Rigidity Thesis is

this; where Schopenhauer identified Incongruity as being located

between ‘abstract representations’ (conceptual categories and

frameworks, according to our revised vocabulary) and ‘representations

of perception’, we substitute simple, garden variety ‘reality’ in place of

this latter element, and remove the incongruity to a place one level

more abstract, that is to say, in the gap between our often rigid

26

application of these abstract representations/conceptual categories and

frameworks, and just that same hard-nosed reality.

Of course not all such instances of this incongruity will be humorous.

Before we can put to rest the question we began this chapter with we

need make just two more stipulations; that the incongruities be

resolvable, and that the context in which they pertain be sufficiently

unthreatening as to foster a sense of mirth. For both we need look no

further than the criteria for delineating the benign we saw put to such

commendable use in the Benign Violation Theory.

Accepting the premise that some resolution of the incongruity is

necessary for humor to persist, we have already seen how two of the

three classes of The Benign (sufficient psychological distance from, and

insufficient commitment to, the violated norm) are reducible to their

role as facilitators of the third (our ability to recognize and acknowledge

the existence of alternative norms), this third class serving as the

mechanism by which incongruities can be resolved.

I propose that these three classes are equally well suited to the

vocabulary of conceptual categories and frameworks as they are to that

of norms; norms here being considered functionally synonymous with

conceptual categories/frameworks, as the store by which expectations

are set and predictions are made.

Thus, we might consider these three classes of The Benign collectively as

the medium by which the revelation of an extant incongruity may be

rendered so unthreatening as to be made amenable mirth, and also (in a

hierarchical fashion according to which psychological distance and lack

of commitment are seen to be mediate conditions for the recognition

27

and appreciation of alternative conceptual categories and frameworks),

as the instrument by which an incongruity may be resolved.

Whether in either instance they are individually sufficient or only

collectively so could be established only by some sort of empirical

survey, which is frankly beyond the purview of this investigation.

So, after all that, what do we laugh at? In the end I find we have the

makings of two seemingly different, but I believe related and compatible

answers.

I propose that what we find humorous, the fundamental unit of The

Comic, is just this; the incongruity between the conceptual categories

and frameworks which we habitually, thoughtlessly, belligerently, or

otherwise rigidly and asyntonously employ, and the reality to which they

do not conform; and secondarily, the incongruity between our

habitually, thoughtlessly, belligerently, or otherwise rigidly and

asyntonously applying these same conceptual categories and

frameworks to a reality they do not fit, and the ideal of Plasticity of

Being (Syntony) which life demands we strive for.

These are the things we laugh at, in ourselves and in others as well as

those objects and situations in the world we anthromorphize, by way of

a theoretically limitless variety of conceptual categories and frameworks

pertaining to all facets of life, whether they are practical, moral,

linguistic, cultural, semantic, or really just about anything one can

imagine.

28

And as if that weren’t enough, we will now take a (hopefully less taxing)

look at why we find funny the things we do, and why we find anything

funny at all.

29

Why Do We Find Things Funny At All?

As I stated before, we will begin this chapter in the same manner that

we embarked upon the previous one. That is to say with a survey of

what the established theories of humor have to say on the subject of

why we laugh.

We will do so, not expecting to learn much of use, or even hoping to

salvage something for our own purposes as we did in the last chapter,

but simply because the absence of such a survey in an investigation of

the reasons underlying the nature and existence of humor would be

conspicuous, and because we left some work undone in the previous

section. As will become clear, my intention in this chapter is to derive

the answer to our question in contrast to answers proffered by the

traditional theories of humor.

Play Theory:

As we saw in the last chapter this theory proved woefully ineffective as

a theory of what we find funny, resembling in the end more a misguided

and unimaginative theory of when we laugh.

However, while we shouldn’t expect here to learn much about why we

find some things humorous, the Play theory’s unique position relative

the distinction between humor and laughter (referring here to its total

inability to talk about internal experiences of mirth) does leave the open

possibility that we might learn something about why we laugh (in the

sense of laughter as a phenomenon subject to analysis in and of itself), if

30

only in a limited, non-comprehensive sense. At the very least it provides

us with the opportunity to discuss an issue which we didn’t get to touch

on in the first chapter; I’m talking here about the intentional stance.

As Dennett et al define it, the intentional stance is;

“the tactic of attributing beliefs, desires, and other mental states and

actions to other minds – the minds of other people, but also animals,

computers, magic lamps, talking choo choo trains and the like”12

The importance of the intentional stance for any theory hoping to

describe and explain the state of humor as we find it in the world is

readily obvious. So much of humor involves the attribution of mental

states (or conceptual frameworks, if we are to employ the vocabulary of

the theory advanced in the previous section of this investigation) that

we neglect the intentional stance at the risk of being totally unable to

explain the existence of any form of humor beyond the purely personal,

individual and internal.

Play theory’s relevance to this discussion can be found in the notion of

Laughter as a ‘Play signal’. Much of comedy involves the attribution of

faulty or ill-suited conceptual frameworks to actors and comedians who

are obviously only feigning the possession of such frameworks; so much,

in fact that it quickly becomes apparent that without a signal intended

for the purposes of delineating the real and the unreal, a lot of comedy

would simply be impossible. Laughter often serves just this function.

To understand this we must remember that in order for a situation to be

humorous it must be sufficiently unthreatening as to be able to foster

12 Hurley, Matthew M., Dennett, Daniel C., & Adams, Reginald B. “Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer The Mind”, p.143 (MIT 2011)

31

mirth. Without a signal capable of indicating unreality, or ‘play’, the

notion of anyone laughing at a television show in which a man slips on a

banana peel and tumbles down a flight of stairs would be a strange one

indeed. Occasionally the signal even works too well, as in the case of

Tommy Cooper, the British prop comedian who collapsed on stage (and

sadly died shortly thereafter); it took quite some time before anyone

came to his aid. The audience, having been primed by so many

indications that Cooper was engaging in ‘play’, simply kept laughing at

what they assumed was just one more part of the act.

There may, of course, be other play indicators, and none of this warrants

the assertion that the fundamental reason for laughter is its role as a

play indicator, but it would be an error to deny the possibility at least.

Superiority Theory:

We noted in the last chapter, how Superiority Theory’s descriptive

function is as good as inseparable from its explanatory function; we

laugh at/find funny that which makes us feel superior, and we laugh at

it/find it funny precisely because it makes us feel superior.

Unfortunately, there is little we can add to this explanation. This theory

equates all humor with mockery. It even, in some variations, attempts to

force mockery to fit situations in which the object of humor is inanimate.

Though not entirely without merit in its descriptive capacity, it is

seemingly entirely bankrupt in its explanatory capacity; why anyone

continues to hold this theory is beyond me.

Some philosophers add a clause to the effect that the mockery implicit in

the negative value judgement serves to correct both our own behaviour

32

by way of highlighting examples of bad or detrimental behaviour, and

that of others through shame and the punitive effect of being made a

source of fun against one’s will. Were Superiority theory found to have

any solid basis at all this Darwinian aspect would certainly count in its

favour, but it is in itself insufficient as an argument for it, and while I do

wish to deny the veracity of Superiority Theory, this is far from

constituting a denial of mockery, which as an unremarkable moral

exaptation of humor is far from unique to this particular theory.

There was, however, one thing left unsaid in our previous analysis of the

Superiority Theory. When we left off we had just demonstrated the

falsity of Superiority’s claim to being a sufficient condition of humor, but

had still not yet entirely ruled out the possibility of its being a necessary

condition. It seemed this might be an endeavour best suited to the

analysis of Superiority Theory’s explanatory component rather than its

descriptive one.

The claim we wish to reject then, to be rid of Superiority Theory once

and for all, is that the experience of mirth necessarily implies a negative

value judgement upon its object. Put this way, we can see that this

assertion is flatly ridiculous.

This mistaken claim may have grown out of some intuition of the

unpleasantness often encountered alongside the revelation of

incongruity (an unpleasantness which, as we have seen, is not

necessarily hostile to the presence of humor), but any attempt to equate

this unpleasantness with the projection of inferiority onto the object of

humor is deeply misguided. Counter-examples abound, but in particular

we might look to our cultural habit of exchanging cards with amusing

inscriptions on birthdays and other occasions of celebration. To assert

33

that we find here any inferiority, or corresponding superiority, is fatuous

at best.

Relief Theory:

Relief Theory is the first theory that can at least offer us something to

hang our hat on with regard the explanatory question.

Consider Freud on the subject;

“If there is a situation in which, according to our usual habits, we should

be tempted to release a distressing affect and if motives then operate

upon us which suppress that affect in statu nascendi… [t]he pleasure of

humor … comes about … at the cost of a release of affect that does not

occur: it arises from an economy in the expenditure of affect”13

Enigmatic, to be sure, but it is a credible attempt explanation at least.

In the last chapter we left open the question of whether Relief Theory

was properly equipped to make claims about humor, or whether it was

consigned to talk only of laughter shucked of its internal aspect as the

private experience of mirth. We may now try out an answer.

Historically, Relief Theories have been particularly ill-suited to talk of

humor and mirth; from Lord Shaftesbury through to Spencer the

emphasis was on the nervous energy’s expulsion by way of laughter and

laughter alone. This energy, it was supposed, “always tends to beget

muscular motion, and when it rises to a certain intensity, always does

13 Freud, Sigmund, “Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious”, tr. James Strachey, p.293 (Penguin 1974)

34

beget it”14. Looking at the extract from Freud’s work, however, his

theory does seem constituted in a manner which may be amenable to

humor and mirth.

Unfortunately, this capacity is so bound up in the archaic vocabulary of

Freud’s psycho-analysis as to seem, relative to the contemporary

understanding of neuro-psychology, unnecessarily extravagant at best,

and positively naïve at worst. It’s not for nothing that we frequently

encounter theories like this one being referred to as ‘hydraulic’

explanations of humor.

I’m prepared to leave this theory behind at this point, expecting that we

will find no shortage of reasons to cast it aside as our investigation

progresses, though it is of interest that Dennett et al find some saving

grace in the theory’s vocabulary

“Perhaps… aspects of these quaint theories can be rehabilitated and put

to good use. Relief from what we still call tension (in spite of abandoning

the pseudo-physics that underwrote that term) is a salient psychological

phenomenon, and the alteration between tension and relaxation that

strikes many as a hallmark of humor may still prove to be an important

element of the theory we are looking for, but only if we can transform

and clarify the constituent notions.”15

The suggestion here, given our understanding of Dennett et al’s

intentions, seems to be that the Relief Theory’s explanatory power may

be reducible to that of a sufficiently broad Incongruity Theory.

14 Spencer, Herbert, “On the Physiology of Laughter” in “Essays on Education, Etc.”, p.299 (London, 1911)15 Hurley, Matthew M., Dennett, Daniel C., & Adams, Reginald B. “Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer The Mind”, p.44-5 (MIT 2011)

35

With this in mind we may move onwards to just that theory.

(We are of course skipping Benign Violation Theory, but for a very good

reason; the existing literature on Benign Violation nowhere concerns

itself with anything other than the description of what is funny. At

present it neither claims nor possesses any explanatory component to

speak of.)

Incongruity Theory:

To the extent that Incongruity Theorists concern themselves with

explaining humor, there are three predominant variations.

The first, as we have just seen, is much akin to Freud’s Relief Theory

explanation.

Kant is the most obvious choice of representative for this group. His

writing on the subject frequently veers into the language of tension and

relaxation;

“The Jest must contain something that is capable of deceiving for a

moment. Hence, when the illusion is dissipated, the mind turns back to

try it once again, and thus through a rapidly alternating tension and

relaxation, it is jerked back and put into a state of oscillation.”16

Granted, Kant suggests here that the mechanism works in an ‘oscillatory’

fashion, rather than by way of simple ‘venting’, but even this oscillation

would presumably come to a stop in the mode of relaxation, unless one

16 Kant, Immanuel “Critique of Judgement”, extract taken from “Comic Relief” by John Morreal, p.14 (Blackwell, 2009)

36

were prepared to argue that humor is an inherently aggravating

experience.

We’ve already seen an example of the second kind of explanation,

though at the time we were considering is in its context as a descriptive

implement. I’m referring to the third of Michael Clark’s proposed criteria

for the Incongruity; namely, that “the person enjoys the perceived

(thought, imagined) incongruity at least partly for itself rather than

solely for some ulterior reason”.

It must be admitted this explanation is frankly dissatisfying.

Dennett et al can provide us an example of the third, and by far most

compelling explanation associated with the Incongruity Theory. This

explanation’s capacity for explaining the purpose of mirth should be

noted in particular;

“The pleasure of mirth is an emotional reward for success in the specific

task of data integrity checking.”17

It seems to me beyond doubt that this last explanation is the only viable

candidate. Of the two other possibilities, the first is rooted in a number

of scientific premises which are themselves so archaic as to border on

ludicrous, and the second explains nothing at all.

The only problem with the third, from our perspective, is that so far as

my research has turned up, it has been neither empirically verified or

falsified; it exists in a sort of quantum state of ‘maybe’.

17 Hurley, Matthew M., Dennett, Daniel C., & Adams, Reginald B. “Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer The Mind”, p.292 (MIT 2011)

37

Finding ourselves not entirely swayed by any available explanation of

the existence and nature of humor, this would be the logical point in our

investigation for us to develop our own theoretical explanation, either

from scratch, or off the back of previously established work.

I am not yet prepared to propose any such theory.

Instead, for the moment, I wish to propose a wholesale objection to

every theory so far considered in this chapter; namely, that those which

are not simply vacuous, are not really explanatory theories at all. Or at

least, that they provide the wrong kind of explanation. The element

common to every one of them is that, contrary to how they are most

often billed, if they tell us anything about humor at all they tell us only

‘how’ it is that we come to laugh. At most they tell might tell us what

evolutionary benefit a sense of humor may confer on those who have

one. They are incapable of getting at the peculiar and enigmatic feeling

of humor, what it is to just find something funny.

Never once in my life have I encountered, or even heard of, anyone who

when asked “why are you laughing?” has responded “I am enjoying my

reward for having exposed and amended a faulty conceptual

framework”, or “I’m venting excess nervous tension from my many

disappointed expectations” (though I may empathise with this latter

person more than I can happily admit).

This is not to suggest that the claims we have been looking at in the

chapter are false, just that they fail to tell us anything that we, as

philosophers, want to know.

Where we have looked for answers to the questions ‘why do we laugh at

the things we laugh at?’, and ‘why do we laugh at all?’, the only half-way

credible answers we have found proffered are ripped straight from

38

evolutionary biology and neuro-psychology; both disciplines philosophy

can no doubt benefit from collaboration and communication with, but

not ones from which we can crib answers and expect to pass muster.

I propose to conclude this investigation with a brief phenomenological

account of humor; one compatible with the descriptive analysis of

humor advanced in the previous chapter, to serve as a possible

schematic for further development.

I refer to this proposal as a ‘phenomenological account of humor’, only

insofar as it is concerned with providing an answer to the two questions

“why do we find things funny?”, and “What is it to find something

funny?” This is not to suggest that I am either committing or limiting

myself to the conceptual tools traditionally associated with the school of

philosophy called Phenomenology. In fact the bulk of this account will be

argued for on the basis of what I perceive as a historical tendency in the

work of a great many philosophers towards certain frequently recurring

elements, both directly and indirectly concerned with humor.

My thesis is this; a common feature we find throughout a whole host

of diverse humor theories is the notion of humor as a corrective force.

For Bergson what’s being corrected is our ‘Rigidity of Being’ relative to

the elasticity the world demands of us; for Schopenhauer, an incongruity

between representations of perception and abstract representation; for

Dennett et al, a disconnect between conceptual frameworks and the

reality they are used to predict.

What I want to propose is that this shared notion of humor as a

corrective force is indicative of a deeper commonality, specifically a

39

preoccupation with the idea that the representation of the world we

create in our head (and in particular the categories we project onto it),

though fundamentally necessary to everything that defines us as human

beings (including rationality, generalization, prediction and expectation,

communication through abstract symbols, etc.), are in another sense

wholly detrimental to us as same, specifically relative to the idealized

potential by which we measure the success of our application of those

very representations and conceptual schemes.

Humor, simultaneously at its most fundamental and profound, is rooted

in the perception of a staggering incongruity in what it is to be self-

conscious in the unique way that human beings are self-conscious; that

is to say, as creatures caught in the incongruity between the imperative

to paint a picture so detailed it becomes real, and our awareness of the

inescapable absurdity and futility inherent in this task.

The different vocabularies employed to describe the idealized level of

correspondence with reality by which we measure the actual level of

correspondence of our conceptual schemes with that reality are too

diverse to accommodate a catch-all term, but for want of something

better, I’ll refer to this idealized correspondence as Syntony.

For Bergson, Syntony was a kind of knowledge attained by way of

“entering into” the object of perception; it was equivalent to both the

absolute and the infinite, and it was inherently unattainable.

For Kierkegaard Syntony was manifested in the Religious Sphere of

Being.

We might note as being of particular interest that for Kierkegaard humor

is “the boundary that separates the ethical [the penultimate sphere of

40

existence] from the religious [the ultimate]”18. This is because humor is,

for Kierkegaard, an attempt to subvert the mechanism by which we

alienate ourselves from Syntony; the mechanism being precisely the

impulse whereby we attempt to get at the world by improving and

multiplying the categories by which we represent it to ourselves as

separate from us, the absurdity of which Bergson demonstrates

beautifully in his “Introduction to Metaphysics”;

“Were all the photographs of a town, taken from all possible points of

view, to go on indefinitely completing one another, they would never be

equivalent to the solid town in which we walk about”19

The subversion carried out by humor consists in placing our ambition

and the tools with which we hope to achieve it (this is to say, our nature)

side by side before our gaze, and letting the glaring incongruity there

between speak for itself.

This, I suggest, is the most fundamental experience of humor.

I maintain that all other apparent examples of humor are either specific

instances of this fundamental humor, or are exaptations of the comic

structure of this fundamental experience, as perceived either in

ourselves or in others, or occasionally projected onto anthromorphized

animals or inanimate objects.

And finally, I suggest that the outline of this fundamental experience is

visible in and compatible with the description of the fundamental unit of

18 Kierkegaard, Soren, “Concluding Unscientific Postscript”, p.448, tr. David F. Swenson (Princeton, 1968)19 Bergson, Henri, “Introduction to Metaphysics”, extract taken from online PDF, tr. T.E. HulmeURL = http://www.realfuture.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Introduction-to-Metaphysics.pdf

41

humor I put forward at the end of the previous chapter on ‘what we find

funny’.

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