On Humor

144 Pages·2.233 MB·English

by  Simon Critchley

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..1H.=15.-1.1 THINKING INACTIONisamajornewseriesthattakesphilosophyto
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On
Humour
'. . . steps with admirable adroitness from Tommy Cooper to Kant. ..
broaches a momentous subject with style and insight; there is no great
writerwho isnothumorousforsomeofthe time.’
TerryEagleton, RadicalPhilosophy
Praise for the series
. . allowsa spacefordistinguished thinkerstowriteabouttheir
passions.”
ThePhilosophers’Magazine
. . deserves high praise.”
BoydTonkin, TheIndependent (UK)
“This is clearlyan importantseries. I lookforwardto reading
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. .both rigorousand accessible.”
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. . an excellentand beautifulseries.”
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“Routledge’s newseries, ThinkinginAction, brings philosophers
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. . awelcome newseries by Routledge.”
BulletinofScience, TechnologyandSociety
SIMON CRITCHLEY
On
H u rn o u r
R '.3?.v:!§:3.g.2.
Y P
LONDONANDNEWYORK
Firstpublished 2002
byRoutledge
11 NewFetterLane,London ECAP4EE
Simultaneouslypublished inthe USAand Canada
byRoutledge
29West35thStreet,NewYork,NY 10001
Reprinted 2004
Routledgeisanimprintofthe Taylor& FrancisGroup
© 2002Simon Critchley
TypesetinJoannaand DIN byKeystroke,Jacaranda Lodge,Wolverhampton
Printed and bound inGreat Britain byTJ InternationalLtd, Padstow, Cornwall
Allrights reserved. No partofthisbook maybe reprinted or
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ISBN 0-415-25120-6lhbk]
ISBN 0—415—25121—4lpbkl
The bitter, the hollowand — haw! haw! —the mirthless. The bitter
laugh laughs at thatwhich is not good, it is the ethical laugh. The
hollow laugh laughs at thatwhich is not true, it isthe intellectual
laugh. Not good! Not true! Well, well. But the mirthless laugh is the
dianoetic laugh, down the snout — haw! — so. It is the laugh of laughs,
the risuspurus, the laugh laughing at the laugh, the beholding, the
saluting ofthe highestjoke, in a word the laugh that laughs - silence
please — at thatwhich is unhappy.
SamuelBeckett,Watt

Introduction ODE 1
ThreeTheories ofHumour
The Phenomenology ofajoke
ComicTiming
Laughter as an Explosion ExpressedWith the Body
Changing the Situation
Reactionary Humour 4
Structured Fun 4
Jokes: Good, Bad and Gulliver 4
Laughter's Messianic Power 4
Sensus and Dissensus COII1II1llI1lS 4 OOO\v-P~i\J*—*\O\|O\UJi\J
Tristram Shandy, or Back to theThingsThemselves Z0
ls Humour Human? TWO 25
Eccentric Humans Z7
A Small Bestiary Z9
Horace andIuvenal, Urbanity and Disgust 31
OutlandishAnimals 34
Kant's Parrot 36
Laughing atYour Body- Post-Colonal Theory
Three
41
Being and Having 42
Physics and Metaphysics 43
Our Souls,Arseholes 45
Peditology 47
The Black Sun at the Centre ofthe Comic Universe 50
The Laughing Machine - a Note on Bergson
and Wyndham Lewis Four
A Cabbage Reading Flaubert — NowThat's Funny
How Humour Begins in Philosophy
Foreigners are Funny- the Ethicityand
Ethnicityof Humour Five
The Universal and the Particular
Ethos and Ethnos
There was a Frenchman, an Englishman and
an Irishman . . .
Having the Courage ofour Parochialism
Comic Repression
The Joke’s on All of Us - Humouras
Sensus Communis SlX
-‘$1
Shaftesbury's Reasonable Raillery
-‘F$TG1HS
Disenchantment ofFolly or Democratization ofWit?
Co
IntersubjectiveAssent
'3
jokes as EverydayAnamnesis
Anaesthesia ofthe Heart
The Phenomenology ofPhenomenology
Whythe Super-Ego isYourAmigo - MySense of
Humourand Freud's SEVEII
Finding OneselfRidiculous
Subject asAbject Object
Melancholy Philosophers
Manic Intoxication
Humour asAnti-Depressant 4
Super-Ego I and II ‘
Ideal Sickness ‘
Laughter I and II 4
Smiling - the Minds Mime 4
The Risus Purus 4
c:c\O\|U'1o:-Pl\Jc*—*:c:c:c:
Notes 113
Bibliography 121
Thanks 125
127
Cseonn
X