The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of Humour gathers the best scholars in this emerging field in order to fill a significant lacuna: to provide an accurate explanation of philosophers’ attitudes toward humour as an umbrella term, both historically and thematically. To that purpose, it addresses not only humour, but also laughter, the comic and related terms, such as smiling, wit, jokes, caricature, irony and stand-up comedy.
The historic part of the Handbook presents the main philosophers and the major philosophic schools which have taken humour seriously, clarifying the ways in which it was interpreted through various periods in Western history, engaging with spiritual traditions and diverse cultures in which humour was significant.
The thematic part, further divided into three sections, disambiguates main notions which are associated with humour as an umbrella term, and emphasizes their role in philosophy (Humour and Related Terms); it promotes the understanding of humour by approaching it through various lenses, (Understanding Humour); it addresses main questions in the ethics of humour, such as its capacity to offend and its potential as a virtue, it gives advice on how best to use it, and sheds light on the strong ties between humour and the human predicament, and on how humour may alleviate it (Humour, Ethics, and the Human Condition).
Part 1: Philosophers on Humor, Laughter, and the Comical.-
1.
Democritus, the Laughing Philosopher, and Heraclitus, the Weeping
Philosopher.- 2 Socrates.-
3. Plato.-
4. Aristotle.-
5. Stocisim and
Epicureanism.-
6. Ancient Cynicism and Skepticism.-
7. The Rhetorical
Tradition in Antiquity.-
8. The Church and Medieval Christian Philosophers.-
9. Classical Islamic Philosophy.-
10. Medieval Jewish Thought Philosophy,
Kabbalah, and Belles-lettres.-
11. Renaissance Philosophers.-
12. Early
Modern and Modern Philosophers.-
13. Thomas Hobbes and Francis Hutcheson.-
14. Immanuel Kant.-
15. G.W.F. Hegel, German Idealism, and German
Romanticism.-
16. Late Modern Philosophers.-
17. Classical American
Philosophers.-
18. Henri Bergson.-
19. George Santayana.-
20. Indian
Philosophy.-
21. Chinese Philosophy.- Part 2: Humor and Related Terms.-
22.
Smiling.-
23. Laughter.-
24. Wit.-
25. Jokes, Puns, and Philosophy.-
26.
Satire and Philosophy.-
27. Caricature.-
28. Irony, the Modern Rhetorical
Tradition, and Philosophy.-
29. Comedy and Philosophy.-
30. Film Comedy.-
31.
Stand-Up Comedy.- Part 3: Unverstanding Humor.-
32. Theories of Humor.-
33.
Emotions, Humor, and Meaning.-
34. Intelligence and Humor.-
35. The Cognitive
Science of Humor.-
36. The Ontology of Humor.-
37. Feminism and Humor.-
38.
Education and Humor.- Part 4: Humor, Ethics, and the Human Condition.-
39.
Offensive Humor.-
40. Humor and Virtue.-
41. The Ethics of Humor - 12 Rules
for Life.-
42. Nihilism and Humor.-
43. The Importance of Being Funny.-
44.
Laughing with Self as Other From Homo ridens to Homo risibilis.-
45. The
Unamused Life Is Not Worth Living.
Lydia Amir teaches at the Department of Philosophy at Tufts University, USA. In addition to publications in other fields, her monographs on humor include Humor and the Good Life in Modern Philosophy: Shaftesbury, Hamann, Kierkegaard (2014), Philosophy, Humor, and the Human Condition: Taking Ridicule Seriously (2019), and The Legacy of Nietzsches Philosophy of Laughter: Bataille, Deleuze, and Rosset (2021). She serves as President of the International Association for the Philosophy of Humor, which she founded ten years ago.
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