humorous. A joke explained is a joke misunderstood.
In this in our selves, by Comparison with the Infirmityes of others,
case, what might make one laugh- albeit as dramatic irony - or with our owne formerly'. Laughter is that 'passion, which
is the audacity or arrogance of the attempt to write a hath no name', which would be forbidden to the virtuous
philosophy of humour. For example, persons who might not guardians of Plato's imagined philosophical city. It is the
otherwise feel themselves to be experts in metapsychology or superiority theory that dominates the philosophical tradi-
French spiritualism somehow feel confident in dismissing tion until the eighteenth century, and we shall have recourse
Freud's theory of jokes or Bergson's account of laughter to it in the discussion of ethnic humour.
because they are either not funny or simply miss the point. 2 The relief theory emerges in the nineteenth century in the
When it comes to what amuses us, we are all authorities, work of Herbert Spencer, where laughter is explained as a
experts in the field. We know what we find funny. Such a claim release of pent-up nervous energy, but the theory is best
to implicit or tacit knowledge is interesting in itself, for reasons known in the version given in Freud's 1905 book ]okes and
that I will endeavour to spell out in a later chapter. However, Their Relation to the Unconscious, where the energy that is relieved
the fact remains that humour is a nicely impossible object for and discharged in laughter provides pleasure because it
a philosopher. But herein lies its irresistible attraction. allegedly economizes upon energy that would ordinarily be
used to contain or repress psychic activity.
THREE THEORIES OF HUMOUR 3 The incongruity theory can be traced to Francis Hutcheson's
In an effort to approach this nicely impossible object, I have Reflections Upon Laughter from 17 50, but is elaborated in related,
been filling much ofmy time lately reading books on humour but distinct, ways in Kant, as we shall see presently, c:
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E and laughter. As a glance at my bibliography will reveal, it is Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard. As ]ames Russell Lowell u
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I a surprisingly vast field, and much of the empirical research writes in 1870, 'Humour in its first analysis is a perception o
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o is extremely pleasurable. The further one looks, the more there of the incongruous'. Humour is produced by the experi-
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is to see, not so much in philosophy, but more in the areas of ence of a felt incongruity between what we lmow or expect
history, literary history, theology and history of religion, to be the case, and what actually takes place in the joke, gag,
sociology and anthropology. jest or blague: 'Did you see me at Princess Diana's funeral?
There are many explanations of laughter and humour, that I was the one who started the Mexican wave'. Although I
John Morreall does well to distill into three theories: the will discuss the other theories below, I would like to begin
superiority theory. the relief theory and the incongruity theory. 1 by exploring this idea o f humour as incongruity.
In the first theory, represented by Plato, Aristotle, Quintillian THEPHENOMENOLOGYOFAJOKE
and, at the dawn ofthe modem era, Hobbes, we laugh from Can we describe what takes place in a joke? How might we
feelings o f superiority over other people, from 'suddaine give what philosophers call the 'phenomenology' of a joke?
Glory arising from suddaine Conception of some Eminency First, joking is a specific and meaningful practice that the
