Abstract
The paper aims at presenting humor in terms of its metaphysical reference and meaning, and is illustrated with the examples of reflection on humor traced in various philosophically-oriented spheres of culture.
In philosophy, humor has traditionally been interpreted primarily as an epistemological category, alongside its aesthetic and ethical implications. However, in the fundamental philosophical plane, the question can be posed if the reference of humor should be restricted to the issues of contrasting reality perception and interpretation methods, or whether, rather, humor is inherent to the very way being as such becomes and evolves. The assumed universal trait of humor would imply that this phenomenon is inseparable from reality itself, constituting a counterpart to the manifestations of the primordial logoic source, or emerging out of the Divine foundation, and is not exclusively an outcome of specific epistemological approach.
If we agree that, in accordance with the so-called incongruity theory, the playful contrasts and contradictions constitute the essence of humor, we can next ask the question whether these contrasts are not somehow rooted in reality itself. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka’s concept of the logos of life as reflected in human creative experience in its manifold radiation can be helpful in this context, rendering it possible to analyze the parallel metaphysical foundations of humor manifested spectacularly in the field of specific human creativity.
Is every witty human “a shepherd” of the cosmic humor, discovering and expressing its essence in his funny and creative speech? Or is it the witty God Himself who continuously perceives the “humorous” aspect of the world, and thus supports the universal humorousness – just as Berkeley’s God supports the world’s existence by perceiving it?
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Manfred Pfister (ed.), A History of English Laughter (Amsterdam – New York: Rodopi, 2002), p. VII.
- 2.
Cf. Anna Małecka, Humor in the Perspective of Logos: the Inspirations of Ancient Greek Philosophy, [in:] Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (ed.), Phenomenology/Ontopoiesis Retrieving Geo-Cosmic Horizons of Antiquity. Logos and Life, Volume CX/Part II (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011), p. 495.
- 3.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/humor/ (access on October 31, 2011).
- 4.
Cf. Aristotle, On the Parts of Animals, trans. William Ogle, [in:] The Works of Aristotle, ed. J. A. Smith and W.D. Ross, vol. 5 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, , 1958), p. 77.
- 5.
Henri Bergson, Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic, trans. Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell, http://www.authorama.com/laughter-1.html
- 6.
Ibidem.
- 7.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, The Fullness of the Logos in the Key of Life, Book I, The Case of God in the New Enlightenment (Dordrecht: Springer, 2009), p. 183.
- 8.
Cf. A. Małecka, Humor in the Perspective of Logos, op. cit.
- 9.
Aristotle, Rhetoric, http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/aristotle_rhetoric02.htm
- 10.
“… humor results when the incongruity is resolved: that is, the punch line is seen to make sense at some level with the earlier information in the joke”. Jerry Sulls, Cognitive Processes in Humor Appreciation, [in:] P. E. Gee, J. H. Goldstein (ed.), Handbook of Humor Research, Vol. I (New York, Berlin, Heidelberg, Tokyo: Springer-Verlag, 1983), p. 41–42.
- 11.
“The cause of laughter in every case is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real objects which have been thought through it in some relation, and laughter itself is just the expression of this incongruity”. Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, Transl. R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp, vol. 1 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trüber & Co., 1896), p. 76.
- 12.
Robert Scruton, Laughter, [in:] John Morreal (ed.), The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987), p. 161.
- 13.
Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation (New York: The Macmillian Company, 1967), pp. 27–87.
- 14.
Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, transl. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Vol. I (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992), p. 550.
- 15.
After: John Morreal (ed.), The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor, op. cit., p. 83.
- 16.
Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, transl. David F. Swenson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941), p. 459.
- 17.
Ibidem, p. 468.
- 18.
Thomas Hobbes, Human Nature, [in:] eadem, English Works, vol. 4 (London: Bohn, 1840), ch. 8, §13.
- 19.
Abraham Tucker, The Light of Nature Pursued, Vol. I, Part II (London: R. Faulder, T. Payne, 1805), p. 87.
- 20.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Complete Works, Volume IV. Lectures upon Shakespeare and Other Dramatists (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1853), p. 278.
- 21.
Cf. Jean Paul Richter, Vorschule der Aesthetik, [in:] idem, Werke (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1826–1828), vol. XI, p. 99.
- 22.
Thomas Carlyle, Jean Paul Richter, [in:] eadem, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, vol. 1 (Boston: Brown and Taggard, 1860), p. 21.
- 23.
A. J. La Valley, Carlyle and the Idea of the Modern, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), p. 39.
- 24.
Cf. Thomas Carlyle, Schiller, [in:] eadem, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, vol. 2 (London: Chapman and Hall, 1905), p. 200.
- 25.
Robert Bernard Martin, The Triumph of Wit. A Study of Victorian Comic Theory, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), p. 28.
- 26.
Ingvild Saelid Gilhus, Laughing Gods, Weeping Virgins: Laughter in the History of Religion, (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 32.
- 27.
Cheryl Taylor, A Theology of Humor, http://ag.org/wim/0805/0805_Theology_Humor.cfm
- 28.
Susanne Rupp, Milton’s Laughing God, [in:] Manfred Pfister (ed.), A History of English Laughter, op. cit., p.47–55.
- 29.
Cf. ibidem, p. 49.
- 30.
Psalm 2:4, The Bible (London: The British & Foreign Bibke Society, 1965), p. 443.Cf. also Cheryl Taylor, A Theology of Humor, op. cit.
- 31.
Cf. John Milton, De Doctrina Christiana [in:] Holly Hansford, James/Waldo Hillary Dunn (eds.), The Works of John Milton, vols. XIV–XVII (New York: Columbia University Press, 1933), 33 ff.
- 32.
Susanne Rupp, Milton’s Laughing God, op. cit., p. 50.
- 33.
Johann Baptist Metz, and Jean-Pierre Jossua, eds., Theology of Joy (New York: Herder and Herder, 1974), p. 90.
- 34.
Susanne Rupp, Milton’s Laughing God, op. cit., p. 51.
- 35.
John Milton, Paradise Lost, VIII, 76–80, http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/pl/book_1/
- 36.
Jackson Lee Ice, “Notes Toward a Theology of Humor.” Religion in Life 42 (Autumn, 1973), p. 388.
- 37.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, The Fullness of the Logos in the Key of Life, Book I, op. cit., p. 253–254.
- 38.
Harvey Cox, God’s Last Laugh,“Christianity and Crisis” 47 (April 6, 1987), p. 107.
- 39.
Cheryl Taylor, A Theology of Humor, op. cit., Morris J. Niedenthal, A Comic Response to the Gospel: The Dethronement of the Powers, “Dialog” 25 (Fall, 1986), p. 288.
- 40.
Cf. Helmut Plessner, Laughing and Crying: A Study of the Limits of Human Behaviour (Evanston, Il: Northwestern University Press, 1970).
- 41.
Cf. Manfred Pfister, Beckett, Barker, and Other Grim Laughers [in:] idem (ed.), A History of English Laughter, op. cit., p. 176.
- 42.
Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot. A Tragicomedy in Two Acts (London: Faber and Faber, 1965), p. 21.
- 43.
Samuel Beckett, Happy Days (New York: Grove Press, 1961), p. 31.
- 44.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music (New York: Penguin Books, 1993).
- 45.
- 46.
Ibidem.
- 47.
Antoni Kępiński, Lęk (Warszawa: Państwowy Zakład Wydawnictw Lekarskich, 1977); Andrzej Kowal, paper entitled Humor and Transcendence according to Józef Tischner and Antoni Kępiński, delivered at the International Tischner Congress: Truth and Goodness, Kraków 25–27 October 2011.
- 48.
Cheryl Taylor, A Theology of Humor, op. cit.; Conrad Hyers, Christian Humor: Uses and Abuses of Laughter, “Dialog” 22 (Summer, 1983), p. 191–197.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Małecka, A. (2012). Towards the Metaphysics of Humor and Laughter. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) Phenomenology and the Human Positioning in the Cosmos. Analecta Husserliana. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4795-1_19
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4795-1_19
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-4794-4
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-4795-1
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)