Book description
Humour has been discovered in every known human culture and thinkers have discussed it for over two thousand years. Humour can serve many functions; it can be used to relieve stress, to promote goodwill among strangers, to dissipate tension within a fractious group, to display intelligence, and some have even…
Why read it?
1 author picked Humour as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Humour is an essential part of life. There may be no human society without jokes and laughter. Aristotle already observed that humans have a unique disposition to laugh. In this book philosopher N. Carroll discusses various attempts by philosophers and social scientists to explain why humans laugh: the superiority theory, the release theory and the incongruity theory. They each attempt to identify what it is in humour which moves us to laughter. The discussion is accompanied by numerous examples of jokes. One of the most interesting aspects of the book is that humour is primarily a source of social information…
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