Notes toward a Field Theory of Humor

Abstract

Every theory both depends upon and attempts to explain a particular set of facts or observations. It seems fair, for example, to say that Hobbes considered a deformed person or someone slipping on a wet street as crucial for his theory of humor and that Bergson had something like a marionette or a jack-in-the-box in mind. Kant saw the unexpected denouement of a clever comic remark as crucial whereas Freud openly admitted that, for the case of sexual humor at least, he was thinking about a smutty joke told by men of breeding in the presence (either real or imagined) of a lady of breeding. Each theorist started from a different reference point and the specific nature of these starting points has served to provide each theory with its own unique orientation and assumptions.