Humour and Incongruity

Referentie:

Clark, Michael, "Humour and Incongruity", Philosophy 45 (1970) 171, p. 20-32

Informatief extract:

"The question "What is humour?" has exercised in varying degrees such philosophers as Aristotle, Hobbes, Hume, Kant, Schopenhauer and Bergson and has traditionally been regarded as a philosophical question. And surely it must still be regarded as a philosophical question at least in so far as it is treated as a conceptual one. Traditionally the question has been regarded as a search for the essence of humour, whereas nowadays it has become almost a reflex response among some philosophers to dismiss the search for essences as misconceived. Humour, it will be said, is a family-resemblence concept: no one could hope to compile any short list of essential properties abstracted from all the many varieties of humour - human misfortune and clumsiness, obscenity, grotesqueness, veiled insult, nonsense, wordplay and puns, human misdemeanours and so on, as manifested in forms as varied as parody, satire, drama, clowning, music, farce and cartoons. Yet even if the search for the essence of humour seems at first sight unlikely to succeed, I do not see how we can be sure in advance of any conceptual investigation; and in any case we might do well to start with the old established theories purporting to give the essence of humour, for even if they are wrong they may be illuminatingly wrong and may help us to compile a list of typical characteristics.

In this paper I want to outline a more defensible version of what is probably the most plausible of the traditional theories, the incongruity theory, and to use my version to elucidate the nature of some of the theories which are its apparent rivals. I do not know whether my incongruity theory is satisfactory, but I believe it is more satisfactory than previous versions and deserves to be considered in this stronger form." (p.1)

Creatieve commentaar:

Voor Michael Clark is de "incongruity theory" over humor de meest plausibele. Volgens die theorie zou humor ontstaan vanuit de tegenstelling tussen wat we verwachten en wat gebeurt, tussen hoe we de werkelijkheid denken en hoe die feitelijk is. Ik denk dat dit inderdaad een heel belangrijk gegeven kan zijn voor humor. Maar is het voldoende en is het altijd (voor elke vorm van humor) het geval? Gaat het altijd om die ongerijmdheden? Hoe verklaar je dan dat je nog steeds schaterlacht wanneer je voor de vijfde keer dezelfde episode van Fawlty Towers ziet? Je weet wat er zal komen en het is juist die voorspelbaarheid die het grappig maakt.

De vernieuwde versie van de incongruïteitstheorie die Clark hier voorstelt zou ook de andere theorieën kunnen ophelderen. Dat is interessant. Clark heeft het over "schijnbaar" rivaliserende theorieën. Bedoelt hij dat de drie traditionele theorieën (incongruity, superiority en relief) samenkomen in zijn opvatting over humor?