A Philosophy of Humour

137 Pages·2019·1.511 MB·English

by  Alan Roberts

A Philosophy of
Humour
Alan Roberts
A Philosophy of Humour
Alan Roberts
A Philosophy of
Humour
Alan Roberts
Department of Philosophy
University of Sussex
Brighton, UK
ISBN 978-3-030-14381-7 ISBN 978-3-030-14382-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14382-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019934706
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
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Acknowledgments
I am indebted to many people for their valuable contributions towards
this book. This includes my editorial team and independent reviewer at
Palgrave Macmillan as well as Matthew Kieran, Dominic Lopes and
Kathleen Stock for their helpful comments. I am deeply grateful to Sarah
Sawyer, not only for her open-mindedness in taking humour seriously,
but also for her dedication, patience and immense knowledge.
I would like to express my gratitude to the friends and family who
bravely agreed to proof-read earlier versions of this book. They are Rona
Bathgate, Lucy Bergmans, Iva Cek, Jonno Evans, Lisa Forrest, Mark
Haskett, Danny Houslay, Woody Lewenstein, Daisy Martin, Eleanor
O’Brien, Fred Perry, Claire Roberts, Craig Roberts, Duncan Shaw, Paul
Taylor and Rory Watts. They may not all be philosophers but each one of
them is a humorist.
I am eternally grateful to my parents, Graham and Joan Roberts, for
their unconditional support in everything I do and for holding the dubi-
ous distinction of having read almost everything I have ever written.
Finally, and most importantly, I would like to thank Camilla Landberg,
whom I met at the start of this journey and without whom I would never
have been able to finish. Tusen takk, min kjære.
v
Contents
1 I ntroduction 1
References 5
2 Amusement, Funniness and Humour 7
1 What is Amusement? 7
2 What is Funniness? 12
3 What is Humour? 16
4 Chapter Summary 20
References 21
3 Early Theories of Amusement 25
1 The Essentialist Approach 25
2 Early Superiority Theories 28
3 Early Incongruity Theories 31
4 Early Release Theories 35
5 Early Play Theories 38
6 Chapter Summary 40
References 41
vii
viii Contents
4 The Cognitive Component of Amusement 45
1 E arly Incongruity Theory 45
1.1 I ncongruity Necessity 46
1.2 I ncongruity Sufficiency 49
2 U nsuccessful Refinements 51
2.1 E xpectation Violation 51
2.2 N orm Violation 53
2.3 E rroneous Conceptualisation 54
2.4 E rror Detection 56
3 B isociation Refinement 57
3.1 B isociation Theories 57
3.2 Th eoretical Synthesis 61
3.3 C ritical Assessment 63
4 R esolution Refinement 66
4.1 R esolution Theories 67
4.2 Th eoretical Synthesis 69
4.3 C ritical Assessment 73
5 Th e Cognitive Component of Amusement 75
6 C hapter Summary 77
References 78
5 T he Affective Component of Amusement 83
1 S uperiority Theories 83
1.1 E arly Superiority Theory 84
1.2 M odern Superiority Theory 86
1.3 K ey Insight 89
2 R elease Theories 91
2.1 E arly Release Theory 91
2.2 M odern Release Theory 93
2.3 K ey Insight 94
3 P lay Theories 96
3.1 E arly Play Theory 97
3.2 M odern Play Theory 99
3.3 K ey Insight 101
Contents ix
4 Th e Affective Component of Amusement 103
5 C hapter Summary 107
References 108
6 A Theory of Amusement 113
1 C ombining the Cognitive and Affective Components of
Amusement 113
1.1 C ognitive Dissonance 114
1.2 Th eory of Amusement 116
1.3 C ritical Assessment 118
2 I ncreasing Amusement via Arousal 121
3 C hapter Summary 126
References 127
Index 131
1
Introduction
Abstract In this chapter, I introduce the discipline of philosophy, defend
humour as a philosophical topic and address the question ‘What is
humour?’
Keywords Humour • Amusement • Funniness
People say to start with a joke, but I’m going to go one better by starting
with the funniest joke in the world:
Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t
seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his
phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, ‘My friend is dead! What
can I do?’ The operator says, ‘Calm down, I can help. First, let’s make sure
he’s dead.’ There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the
guy says, ‘OK, now what?’
This joke was recently voted the funniest in the world during an interna-
tional poll with over 40,000 jokes and almost 2,000,000 ratings (Wiseman
2015, 217). So, if you have not promptly died of laughter as per Monty
© The Author(s) 2019 1
A. Roberts, A Philosophy of Humour, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14382-4_1
2 A. Roberts
Python’s sketch ‘The Funniest Joke in the World’, then your sense of
humour is malfunctioning and in need of some maintenance. Luckily,
this book can provide that maintenance because it is titled A Philosophy of
Humour. Let’s unpack that title starting with the word ‘philosophy’.
The word ‘philosophy’ comes from the Greek words philo and sophia
meaning ‘love’ and ‘wisdom’, so philosophy is literally ‘the love of wis-
dom’. What this essentially amounts to, I would argue, is using reason to
address fundamental questions. Questions like:
What is the meaning of life?
Do I have free will?
Is there a God?
How should we organise society?
At this point philosophy and humour may seem an odd mix. After all,
philosophy is clearly a weighty discipline and humour a light topic. But
there are good reasons to consider humour a worthwhile topic for philo-
sophical study.
First, humour is universal across humanity. Laughter has been discov-
ered in every known human culture and can be experienced by almost
everyone (Apte 1985; Lefcourt 2001). The sound of laughter is one of the
few non-verbal expressions which remains recognisable from one culture
to another (Sauter et al. 2010). Moreover, the average person laughs
around 17 times a day and at the rate of about 5 laughs for every 10 min-
utes of conversation (Martin and Kuiper 1999; Vettin and Todt 2004).
Second, humour is important to humanity. Your sense of humour
determines what books you read, what films you watch and what rela-
tionships you have. Both men and women prefer romantic partners with
a good sense of humour and sexually attractive people are more likely to
be seen as funny (Lippa 2007; Cowan and Little 2013). In addition, mar-
ried couples who use laughter when discussing relationship conflicts not
only feel better afterwards but also report higher levels of marital satisfac-
tion and stay together for longer (Whalen 2010; Yuan et al. 2010).
Third, humour is beneficial for humanity. Laughter is followed by a
period of muscle relaxation with a corresponding decrease in heart rate
and blood pressure (Bennett and Lengacher 2008). Humour helps people