Over the last three years I have been fortunate to teach an unusual class, one that provides an academic background in ethical and social and political theory using the medium of comedy. I have taught the class at two schools, a private liberal arts college in western Pennsylvania and a public regional state university in southern Georgia. While the schools vary widely in a number of ways, there are characteristics that the students share: the school in Pennsylvania had a (...) large population of students raised in a middle class industrial context, and the school in Georgia had a majority of students from middle-to-lower class agricultural backgrounds. Because of recent collapses in the economy of the tool and dye industry in the Great Lakes region, and the ongoing concerns for development in rural and urban areas of the southeastern United States, both groups of students were in similarly dire economic and working conditions. All faced the distinct possibility that they would not do as well in life as their parents. Most of the students grew up with television and film and had a love of comedy when they arrived at college. -/- Entertainment and mass media contributed to the students' mindset and the lens through which they viewed and interpreted their lived experience. Comedic mass media in the form of television sitcoms and films were common choices for inexpensive entertainment, in their childhood, in their past, in their homes, and now in their college dorms and apartments. In asking students to connect their own history with cultural trends depicted in comedy in film and television, even through the history of television, gave the students a familiar venue to critically consider their own intellectual growth and development and that of American society as a whole. -/- Many of them were familiar with the internet, and enjoyed the internet as a source of information about celebrities as well as the history and episodes of their favorite television shows and films. Students are rediscovering and discovering television programs that their professors may have watched as children, with the availability of a wide range of comedy television programs available on cable, especially TVLand, Comedy Central and Nick-at-Night. -/- In this article I will elaborate on the value of comedy as a teaching tool for philosophers and professors. I will provide a number of examples, showing how comedy can provide fertile examples of ethical theory at work, and I will show how comedy can be used to clarify cultural norms and values. Finally, I will discuss the political activism and student empowerment involved in teaching Philosophy, Comedy and Film in southern Georgia. (shrink)

Recently, the philosophical significance of comedy has attracted a great deal of attention from Continental philosophers, including this author. After venturing an account for this sudden interest, this paper surveys six contemporary books that take different views of this phenomenon. This fertile field will surely benefit from the contributions and responses of Philosophy Compass' readers.

This paper discloses and furthers the rebirth of comedy in Continental philosophy in three stages. The first treats Greek comedy, bringing forth the comic contours in Plato and exploring the philosophical content of Aristophanic comedy. The second examines certain German encounters with comedy, from the staid Wieland translations of Aristophanes through the thoughtful discussions of Schiller, Hegel, and Nietzsche. The third investigates twentieth-century American comedy and its connection to American Continental philosophy, and includes (...) a close analysis of the Marx Brothers' Horsefeathers . The latter serves as a bridge to some surprising developments regarding comedy, poetry, and philosophy. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein suggests that ?A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes?. The idea for this dialogue comes from a conversation that Michael Peters and Morwenna Griffiths had at the Philosophy of Education of Great Britain annual meeting at the University of Oxford, 2011. It was sparked by an account of an assessment of a piece of work where one of the external examiners unexpectedly exclaimed ?I knew Jean-Paul Sartre?, trying to trump the discussion. (...) This conversation is a dialogue about comedy and humor as a basis for philosophy, education and pedagogy that provides an introduction to recent works and a context for ongoing research. The concluding section provides further reflection on some of the main themes, drawing attention to the significance of humor in dialogues within philosophy and education, and suggesting that it has a particular role in resisting managerialism at all levels of educational institutions. (shrink)

I set the stage for Socrates and Aristophanes’ alliance by beginning with Hegel’s question, what is the object of art?, in the context of his analysis of ancient Greek “art-religion.” Hegel traces the shifting object of art through a variety of artistic practices before arriving at comedy, which he identifies as the last stage of Greek aesthetic life. He finally asks, what is the object of comedy? Unlike other artistic practices that are positively defined by their created object (...) or creative activity, ancient comedy appears to be purely destructive, terminating anything that might be traditionally recognizable as an object of art. Hegel points to Aristophanes and Socrates as representing two sides of the defacement of the object of art-religion as such. Moving beyond Hegel, I turn to Aristophanes and Plato to consider how in the performative destruction of the object of aesthetic and philo- sophical reflection, something slips into being that may be identified as the phantom form of the Subject. (shrink)

Instead he argues that there is an essence of comedy in the area of spirit rather than form, perspective rather than pattern. He draws upon the rich historical ensemble of types of comic figures, with a chapter devoted to each: the humorist, comedian, comic hero, rogue, trickster, clown, fool, underdog, and simpleton. He shows how each type incarnates a comic heroism in its own unique manner, offering a profound wisdom and philosophy of life.

In a letter written to Gadamer after receiving a copy of Truth and Method, Leo Strauss offered many criticisms with which Gadamer took issue. However, he acknowledged the important hint cited in the title. Perhaps strangely, Gadamer never took up this hint and showed very little interest in comedy throughout his Gesammelte Schriften. In this essay, I show that there are ample resources within Gadamerian hermeneutics to answer Strauss positively, also for a rich philosophy of comedy along (...) Gadamerian lines. Toward that end, I use Gadamer’s Aristotelian view of tragedy as a clue; interpretations of play, excess and delight (Ergötzen) also weave into the analyses. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Slipping on Banana Peels, Tumbling into WellsPhilosophy and ComedyPaul A. Kottman (bio)Alenka Zupančič. The Odd One In: On Comedy. Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 2008.[T]he philosopher... is the jest, not only of Thracian handmaids but of the general herd, tumbling into wells and every sort of disaster through his inexperience [hupo apeirias].—Plato, Theaetetus 174cWhy stop philosophy’s most precious intrinsic comedy when it comes to comedy?—Alenka Zupančič, (...) The Odd One In1“Comedy,” writes Alenka Zupančič in The Odd One In, “draws our attention to the fact that something of our life lives on its own as we speak, that is to say, at any moment of our life” [218]. Reelaborating some of Jacques Lacan’s formulations regarding comedy, drive, and desire, Zupančič clarifies that this “something” is the “Real of human desire”— namely, “the incongruence of the reality of desire and drive with all those (also quite factual) outlines that determine our supposedly realistic reality” [218]. This extrapolation from Lacan frames Zupančič’s views on comedy and its subversive character; but it is her unique engagement with G. W. F. Hegel’s remarks on comedy—particularly the sections of the Phenomenology of Spirit in which Hegel tracks the passage from the Comedy of Aristophanes to Christianity—that give a distinctive arc to Zupančič’s highly original and generative approach to comedy and its subversive character. In this review essay, I will draw attention to some of the most original aspects of this critical appropriation of Hegel, while highlighting key elements of the text’s argumentative trajectory. Toward the end of this essay, I will also suggest ways that Hegel’s speculative remarks, which see the comic figure as symptomatic of a community that is not yet conscious of itself as such, might allow us to put into question some of Zupančič’s central claims regarding the subversive nature of both comedy and her own critical intervention.Zupančič’s reflections on comedy—which are not only innovative, but also delightfully readable—merit, in their own right, the attention of anyone interested in the intersection of literature, philosophy, and contemporary culture; but her text is all the more significant in light of the oft-remarked rarity of sustained philosophical reflections on comedy. Although there are a number of books on comedy as a literary genre, philosophical studies of comedy are surprisingly rare.1 Henri Bergson’s Le rire (published in 1900) [End Page 3] is perhaps the most well known. More recently, Simon Critchley has written about laughter, wit, and jokes in On Humour. Perhaps the most comprehensive philosophical account of comedy to date—Agnes Heller’s Immortal Comedy: The Comic Phenomenon in Art, Literature and Life (2005)—was published only three years before The Odd One In.2In contrast to Heller’s work, which offers a philosophical account of a variety of comic works and genres, and unlike these other earlier studies, which deal with the poetics of comedy and related phenomena such as laughter or jokes, Zupančič does not approach comedy as an object of inquiry that might be analyzed by philosophical categories or methods, nor even as a phenomenon that is extrinsic to philosophy. Instead, she sees comedy and philosophy as intrinsic to one another, such that the fate of philosophical activity is tied to the fate of the comical. In assessing Zupančič’s claims, therefore, I will strive less for a summary catalogue of the claims presented in the book than for a reelaboration of what I take to be her most provocative and important assertions regarding what she calls the “critical edge” shared by both philosophy and comedy [Zupančič 9].The Odd One In is the eighth title in the series Short Circuits, edited by Slavoj Žižek, in relation to whose writings Zupančič’s text clearly stands in intellectual and stylistic propinquity. (Žižek himself might be taken as a prime figure in whom comic and philosophical practices, in Zupančič’s sense, coincide.) The book opens and closes with a reminder that we too often mistake the subversive side of comedy for “a consolation... (shrink)

Philosophy is like a party that started over 2,500 years ago and is still going strong. When you take a philosophy class, you're invited to join this party; but walking into a party 2,500 years late can feel a little awkward. This book is meant to solve that problem. The best way to feel welcome is to focus on how funny philosophy is, simply because its ideals are so high that humans almost never manage to reach them. (...) This book gives three answers to the question "What is philosophy?" (1) Philosophy is a conversation that has been going on for over 2,500 years which has been full of comedy from the beginning and will continue to be funny forever if we do it right. (2) Philosophy is a very awkward business that has always been on the verge of going out of business. (3) Philosophy is something that makes almost everyone write very badly. In addition to this three-act comedy the book also contains two practical guides to being happy and successful in philosophy classes. (shrink)

Only a Joke Can Save Us presents an innovative and comprehensive theory of comedy. Using a wealth of examples from high and popular culture and with careful attention to the treatment of humor in philosophy, Todd McGowan locates the universal source of comedy in the interplay of the opposing concepts lack and excess. After reviewing the treatment of comedy in the work of philosophers as varied as Aristotle, G. W. F. Hegel, Sigmund Freud, Henri Bergson, and (...) Alenka Zupancic, McGowan, working in a psychoanalytic framework, demonstrates that comedy results from the deployment of lack and excess, whether in contrast, juxtaposition, or interplay. Illustrating the power and flexibility of this framework with analyses of films ranging from Buster Keaton and Marx Brothers classics to Dr. Strangelove and Groundhog Day, McGowan shows how humor can reveal gaps in being and gaps in social order. Scholarly yet lively and readable, Only a Joke Can Save Us is a groundbreaking examination of the enigmatic yet endlessly fascinating experience of humor and comedy."--Publisher's summary. (shrink)

Humour is a funny thing. Everyone knows what humour is but no-one knows exactly how it works. This book addresses the question 'What is humour?' -/- Consulting a dictionary on this question reveals an uninformative circle of definitions that goes from 'humour', to 'amusement', to 'funny' and back to 'humour'. Hence the book starts by untangling this circle of definitions to avoid being tied in conceptual knots. The remainder of the book is then free to lucidly provide a new theory (...) of humour which draws on cutting-edge research in psychology, linguistics and neuroscience. -/- Humour is important to people and so then are philosophical questions about humour. This book provides an understanding of what our sense of humour reveals about us and elucidates joking matters from the dinner table to the comedy club. (shrink)

The Western philosophical tradition has shown a marked and perennial fondness for tragedy. From Plato and Aristotle, through the development of Christianity, to German idealism, and even to contemporary reflections on the murderous violence of the twentieth century, philosophy has repeatedly looked to tragedy for resources to make suffering, grief, and death thinkable. But what if by showing such a preference for tragedy, philosophical thought has unwittingly and unknowingly aligned itself with a form of thinking that accepts human suffering (...) and pain without protest? This collection explores possibilities for philosophical thinking that refuse the tragic model of thought and turn instead to its often-overlooked companion: comedy. Composed of a series of experiments ranging across the philosophical tradition, the essays in this volume propose to break, or at least suspend, the use of tragedy as an index of truth and philosophical worth. Instead, they explore new conceptions of solidarity, sympathy, critique, and justice. In addition, the essays collected here provide ample reason to believe that philosophical thinking, aligned with comedy, is capable of important and original insights, discoveries, and creations. The prejudicial acceptance of tragic seriousness only impoverishes the life of thought; it can be rejuvenated and renewed by laughter and the comic. This book was originally published as a special issue of Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities. (shrink)

Improvisation is usually either lionized as an ecstatic experience of being in the moment or disparaged as the thoughtless recycling of clichés. Eschewing both of these orthodoxies, _The Philosophy of Improvisation_ ranges across the arts—from music to theater, dance to comedy—and considers the improvised dimension of philosophy itself in order to elaborate an innovative concept of improvisation. Gary Peters turns to many of the major thinkers within continental philosophy—including Heidegger, Nietzsche, Adorno, Kant, Benjamin, and Deleuze—offering readings (...) of their reflections on improvisation and exploring improvisational elements within their thinking. Peters’s wry, humorous style offers an antidote to the frequently overheated celebration of freedom and community that characterizes most writing on the subject. Expanding the field of what counts as improvisation, _The Philosophy of Improvisation_ will be welcomed by anyone striving to comprehend the creative process. (shrink)

This essay examines two texts that Walter Benjamin wrote in 1918, during his period in Bern, on Shakespeare’s comedy As you like it and on Le malade imaginaire by Molière When these texts are considered together, a question arises. What is the role of the comic inside Benjamin’s philosophy, in this period and also in the years to follow? Is the comic really only the other side of mourning, as Benjamin writes in The Origin of German Tragic Drama, (...) or does it also have another significance, a significance of its own? Moreover, why should Shakespeare’s comedy be the opposite of Molière’s comedy, as Benjamin writes in the paper on Molière? In order to answer, we are going to set a connection between Shakespeare’s «unarmed eye» and the «innocence» that Molière’s comedy indicates. This will also lead us to another text that was of much significance to Benjamin, Stendhal’s Charterhouse of Parma. Here too, as in As you like it, there is an innocent protagonist trying to escape from the evil of a court. Yet Shakespeare’s As you like it ends with the reconstruction of a court. What does Benjamin mean, then, when he states that in As you like it «everything ends in loneliness»? The answer will provide a point of convergence between Shakespeare’s and Molière’s comedy. Benjamin’s idea of «Weltlichkeit», of which comedy is a necessary part, will prove to be an alternative to the “armed” character of the court. (shrink)

The Western philosophical tradition shows a marked fondness for tragedy. From Plato and Aristotle, through German idealism, to contemporary reflections on the murderous violence of the twentieth century, philosophy has often looked to tragedy for resources to make suffering, grief, and death thinkable. But what if, in showing this preference, philosophical thought has unwittingly and unknowingly aligned itself with a form of thinking that accepts injustice without protest? What if tragedy, and the philosophical thinking that mobilizes it, gives a (...) tacit assent to injustice?This collection explores possibilities for philosophical thinking that are revealed by deliberately refusing the tragic model of thought, by turning instead to its often-overlooked companion: comedy. Comprising a series of experiments ranging across the philosophical tradition, the essays in this volume propose to break, or at least suspend, the use of tragedy as an index of truth and philosophical worth. In so doing, they explore new conceptions of solidarity, sympathy, critique, and justice.In conjunction with the extended network of projects and ideas with which they engage, the essays collected here provide ample reason to believe that philosophical thinking, aligned with comedy, is capable of important and original insights, discoveries, and creations. The prejudicial acceptance of tragic seriousness only impoverishes the life of thought; it can be rejuvenated and renewed by laughter and the comic. (shrink)

In this essay, I approach the question of comedy and tragedy, as well as their relation to philosophy, in the Platonic dialogues through a focus on the comic poet Aristophanes’ speech in Plato’s Symposium. I elicit both the positive contribution of the poet’s speech as well as its limitations for an understanding of comedy, tragedy, and philosophy.

Melds philosophical analysis with early cinematic history to develop a fresh theory of the notion of comedy.

Review of Moland, L. (Ed.). (2018). All Too Human. Laughter, Humor, and Comedy in Nineteenth-Century Philosophy. Boston: Springer.

This paper is an investigation of the role of comedy in philosophical thinking, particularly of how comedy reveals the erotic dimension of philosophical thinking.In the first half of the paper, I show that the relation between comedy and Eros is a powerful means to understand in what way philosophy is not technē. Philosophy in its erotic and comedic character is, rather, engaged with an appearing of things as ‘birthed’ or ‘living.’ In the second part of (...) the paper, I focus on the role of comedy in the Laches. There I study the complex relationship between philosophy as erotic thinking and andreia or ‘manliness.’ I show that philosophy as erotic must distinguish itself from manliness and that the enactment of this differentiation is the core of the Laches. At the same time, manliness is not simply something that philosophy should not concern itself with. Philosophy must ask the question ‘what is manliness?’ as a way of enacting manliness and overcoming it, in an overcoming through which philosophy comes to its own erotic core. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the comic potential that originates in the way players of digital games take on the dual position of being at once a played self that is internal to the gameworld and a playing self that perceives this world from the outside. I first describe the comic attitude as it is defined within philosophy: as an attitude of distanced and dispassionate reflection towards an incongruity. I then show how the dual position of players during gameplay not only (...) is characterized by incongruities, such as contradictions between the apparent seriousness and the ultimate triviality of in-game actions, but also allows players to dispassionately reflect on these incongruities. I thus argue that digital gameplay entails the inherent possibility of turning players into both a comic object and a laughing subject. (shrink)

The films of Bruno Dumont are tied to unwatchability, austerity, and a post-theological seriousness. Recently, however, Dumont has taken a surprising turn towards comedy; and yet these comedies are not without the post-theological despair that characterizes his earlier films. Taking Dumont's comedy seriously, this article frames Dumont's comedic turn not as a deviation but rather as a realignment that requires retroactive reconsideration of his oeuvre's post-theological orientation. We interrogate the philosophical implications of laughter in Dumont's work and argue (...) that it suggests a new trajectory for the post-theological project. The work of Georges Bataille anchors our analysis of violent laughter, while Jean-Luc Nancy's post-theology structures our central argument. We read Nancy's post-theology into the construction of space and subjectivity in Dumont's earlier works, which characterize both human characters and the landscapes they inhabit with a pervasive sense of depthlessness or blankness. These features of absence often lead spectators to project emotions onto Dumont's characters, but we stress this blankness as foregrounding the essential unknowingness of the subject – something which also drives Bataille's notion of laughter. For Bataille, laughter is rooted in nonknowledge, it is a non-productive expenditure that exposes the limits of human existence. It is this horizon of death and nothingness that drives Dumont's comedies. Understood through post-theological laughter, Dumont's comedic films and TV series provide new ways of accounting for the death of God. This laughter in turn operates retroactively to productively reframe post-theological violence in his work. In short, this article contends that none of Dumont's films are meant to be taken seriously. Confronting the ethical and philosophical implications of Dumont's comedic turn, this article investigates the implications of reading his oeuvre through this divinely absurdist, post-theological comedic lens and articulates a theory of post-theology that foregrounds the radicality of laughter. (shrink)

Demonstrates that slapstick film comedies display a canny and sometimes profound understanding of their medium. Slapstick film comedy may be grounded in idiocy and failure, but the genre is far more sophisticated than it initially appears. In this book, Burke Hilsabeck suggests that slapstick is often animated by a philosophical impulse to understand the cinema. He looks closely at movies and gags that represent the conditions and conventions of cinema production and demonstrates that film comedians display a canny and (...) sometimes profound understanding of their medium—from Buster Keaton’s encounter with the film screen in Sherlock Jr. (1924) to Harpo Marx’s lip-sync turn with a phonograph in Monkey Business (1931) to Jerry Lewis’s film-on-film performance in The Errand Boy (1961). The Slapstick Camera follows the observation of philosopher Stanley Cavell that self-reference is one way in which “film exists in a state of philosophy.” By moving historically across the studio era, the book looks at a series of comedies that play with the changing technologies and economic practices behind film production and describes how comedians offered their own understanding of the nature of film and filmmaking. Hilsabeck locates the hidden intricacies of Hollywood cinema in a place where one might least expect them—the clowns, idiots, and scoundrels of slapstick comedy. “From its analysis of the vaudevillian Victorian origins to early Hollywood expressions, and from defining classical performances by the likes of Keaton to recent postmodern recapitulations, Hilsabeck’s theoretically rigorous and wide-ranging study masterfully weaves a path through the historical, technical, and philosophical art of slapstick comedy. A must for scholars working in this field.” — Daniel Varndell, author ofHollywood Remakes, Deleuze and the Grandfather Paradox. (shrink)

This essay discusses five main topoi in the Divine Comedy through which teachers might encourage students to explore the question of the Divine Comedy’s treatment of philosophy. These topoi are: (1) The Divine Comedy’s representations in Inferno of noble pagans who are allegorically or historically associated with philosophy or natural reason; (2) its treatment of the relationship between faith and reason and that relationship’s consequences for the text’s understanding of the respective authoritativeness of theology and (...) philosophy; (3) representations in the Divine Comedy that relate to the question of the practical value of philosophical (not to mention theological) speculation; (4) the text’s treatment of the respective merits of practical and contemplative activities; and (5) its implicit defense of philosophy’s authority with respect to ethical and political questions. (shrink)

This paper deals critically with Stanley Cavell’s Pursuits of Happiness, a study of seven film comedies from the 30’s and 40’s, among them The Philadelphia Story, His Girl Friday, Adam’s Rib, and It Happened One Night. Negatively, I argue that Cavell’s interpretations of the films he deals with are often extravagant, if held to any objective standard; that his conception of the genre of the comedy of remarriage is highly arbitrary, both in its inclusions and exclusions, and in its (...) contention that the genre does not have a history; and that the philosophy of marriage implicit in Cavell’s criticism is unsatisfactory in implying the illegitimacy of most existing marriages. Positively, I support his contentions that the genre has its roots in Shakespearean comedy and that the films often (sometimes quite consciously) raise the very difficult philosophical questions Cavell takes them to raise. Though I find much to disagree with, I contend that Cavell is writing criticism of the highest order. (shrink)

Greek tragedy, in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, represents the performative realization of binary political difference, for example, “private versus public,” “man versus woman” or “nation versus state.” On the other hand, Roman comedy and French Revolutionary Terror, in Hegel, can be taken as radical expressions of political in-difference, defined as a state where all mediating structures of association and governance have collapsed into a world of “bread and circuses.” In examining the dialectical interplay between binary, tragic difference and comedic, (...) terrible in-difference, the paper arrives at hypothetical conclusions regarding how these political forms may be observed today. (shrink)

Towards the very end of his wide-ranging lectures on the philosophy of art, Hegel unexpectedly expresses a preference for comedy over tragedy. More surprisingly, given his systematic claims for his aesthetic theory, he suggests that this preference is arbitrary. This essay suggests that this arbitrariness is itself systematic, given Hegel’s broader claims about unity and necessity in art generally and his analysis of ancient as opposed to modern drama in particular. With the emergence of modern subjectivity, tragic plots (...) lose their necessity and so their redemptive conclusions; comic plots disintegrate into mockery and entertainment. In many cases, the dramas in question consequently fail to be art. This does not, however, mean that art ends: insofar as it inspires humans to a better understanding of their unity with the divine, it will continue to meet its mandate. But the lack of necessity in modern drama means we are free to prefer happy endings. Hegel’s seemingly arbitrary preference is, in the end, systematically justified. (shrink)

The fundamental insight that N. Berdyaev obtains in his historiosophical reflections is that history is antinomic and the historical process is catastrophic since it has to end, because “the world cannot exist eternally”. In its global, empirical (objective) dimension, history resembles an absurd comedy “in which nothing ever succeeds”. The idea of history as a long duration (long duree) and permanent progress misses its essence. According to Berdyaev, such history is meaningless, and it has to end. Its true meaning (...) is revealed only in “its end” and “before the face of eternity”. Terrestrial history does not have its epilogue and the final solution in historical time but in celestial history when the boundaries between the immanent and the transcendent world disappear. History is the path to another and different, sublime and spiritual (noumenal) world that lies beyond the boundaries of everything historical. The destiny of man, which lies at the heart of history, assumes a meta-historical goal and a trans-historical solution to the destiny of history in a different, eternal time. To summarize, history has an eschatological meaning. Although there is an unsolvable tragic conflict between the individual human destiny and the destiny of humanity as a whole within the framework of history, Berdyaev, following the entire tradition of Russian religious philosophy, is convinced that the overcoming of that contradiction on the historical level is possible with love as the salvation and the main driving force of the soul and the source of all the spiritual creation of man. (shrink)