Drie traditionele theorieën over humor binnen de filosofie

Referentie:

Lemma "Humour", in: Routledge Enceclopedia of Philosophy, London: Routledge, Version 1.0.

Informatief extract:

"What is meant by saying that something is humorous or funny? It is clear that humorousness must be elucidated in terms of the characteristic response to humour, namely humorous amusement, or mirth. It is plausible to define humour in this way: for something to be humorous is for it to be disposed to elicit mirth in appropriate people through their awareness or cognition of it, and not for ulterior reasons. But this invites the question, ‘What is mirth?’ The three leading ideas in philosophical theories of humour are those of incongruity, superiority and relief or release. Although the perception of incongruity is often involved in finding something funny, and the resolution of a perceived incongruity plays an important role in good humour, none of these, in themselves or combined with others, is capable of capturing the concept of mirth. Mirth is not identical with the pleasurable perception of an incongruity, pleasure in feeling superior, the relief of tension or release of accumulated mental energy, or any combination of these elements. A better account of mirth is that it is a certain kind of pleasurable reaction which tends to issue in laughter if the reaction is sufficiently intense. So something is funny if it in itself pleases appropriate people through being grasped, where the pleasure is of the sort that leads, though not inevitably, to laughter.

Incongruity theorists include Schopenhauer, Hazlitt, Kierkegaard, A. Koestler, D.H. Monro and
perhaps Kant.

Superiority theorists, who include Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, Alexander Bain and Henri Bergson , construe humour as rooted in the subject’s awareness of superiority, in some respect, to the humorous object.

Spencer and Freud, the most well-known relief theorists, locate the essence of the humorous in the relief from psychic constraint or the release of accumulated mental energy that it affords."

Creatief commentaar:

Dit encyclopedieartikel was de aanzet voor mijn zoektocht naar wat er binnen de filosofie allemaal al gepubliceerd werd over humor. Wat is "grappig", wat is "humor"? Het zijn vragen die me al lang boeien. Velen zullen antwoorden: "Het is iets persoonlijks: je vindt het grappig of je vindt het niet grappig. Zo simpel is het." Neen, ik geloof niet dat het zo eenvoudig is.