Volume 6, Issue 1

The role of playfulness in humor theory has often been neglected. Humor theorists often connect a certain implicit playfulness, but most do not employ the rich theoretical tradition of the play discipline. If play is discussed, it is usually used to call humor innocuous or detached from normal life. The assumption that play is always safe or disconnected from larger life is not well-founded in play studies. In this way, humor theorists can make inaccurate or even dangerous conclusions about playful humor. Simultaneously, play theorists often view humor as an enactment of playfulness, while not robustly defining it. We provide new perspectives on the experience of playful humor, based on Masek and Stenros’s (2021) and Masek’s (2024) theory of playfulness as “engagement prioritizing.” In this interdisciplinary approach, we argue that humor is a form of transgressive playfulness. We define comedy as a subset in which rules are set up in such a way that transgression is systematic. The theory is described and compared to major humor theories, most notably Incongruity and Benign Violation Theory. This approach offers a closer collaboration between theories of humor and play and reframes several important humor questions.

This paper investigates the question whether jokes and joking demand cooperative communication; where jokes refer to fictional narratives and joking refers to the performative situation in which these are told. The investigation first offers an evaluation of the distinct properties inherent to the narrative joke’s form and its performance. This includes an analysis of Austin’s conception of the performative utterance. While Austin deliberately excludes joking from his theory, I show that a significant characteristic of joking is the convergence of the illocutionary and perlocutionary act. The investigation assesses further prerequisites for successful joke performances and proceeds with the examination whether Grice’s cooperative principle applies to joking, or whether these maxims are being violated within joking; and critically engages with Attardo’s and Raskin’s responses to this question, who claim the latter. I provide an important corrective to Attardo’s and Raskin’s positions by proposing an account that stresses pragmatic distinctions between jokes and joking and argues for the possibility of cooperative humorous communication.

This article explores the profound relationship between shared emotions, particularly laughter and tears, and the concept of sovereignty, with a focus on the philosophical implications for friendship through by the lens of Georges Bataille’s thought. By analyzing shared laughter, the article highlights how this communal experience becomes a form of collective liberation, offering a momentary transcendence of individual identity and a confrontation with anguish. Tears, in contrast, are examined as a more intimate expression of pain and vulnerability, revealing the subject's exposure to the unknown. These intense emotional experiences are ultimately shown to lead to a transformative understanding of sovereignty, where the boundaries of the self dissolve, making room for an authentic connection with others. The article concludes by emphasizing friendship as the manifestation of sovereignty, a bond that goes beyond social conventions and familial structures. Friendship, in this context, becomes a space where identity is not fixed, but constantly reshaped through shared vulnerability and the deep emotions that laughter and tears bring.

I argue that most of the premodern Chinese schools of thought contain elements of humor that can be analyzed in a differentiated and systematic way. This article is the second of two parts of this investigation. The first part outlined the foundations of humor in the thought of Confucius and Zhuangzi. After an introduction that summarizes some of the systematic foundations which were already presented in more detail in the introduction to the first part, this part of the investigation complements the former by directing the attention to the field of Chan Buddhism. Here, I refer to a humorous anecdote about Deng Yinfeng. To further complete the overall picture, I discuss examples of humor in other ancient schools of Chinese thought, namely in various texts of Han dynasty Confucianism, in Legalism (which also has a Daoist dimension to it), in surviving text fragments of the School of Names (which is implicitly related to Mohist thought), and in The Annals of Lü Buwei (Syncretism). The present article should be read in conjunction with the first part, which was published in last year’s issue of this yearbook.

Jorge Portilla, in his Fenomenolog ía del Relajo , translated by Carlos Alberto Sánchez, argues that there is a specter haunting Mexican society in the mid-Twentieth Century: the “suspension of seriousness” through the value-denying, community-destroying, bad-faith having, truth-apathetic, laughing-at-everything relajo. Sánchez’s insightful investigation of Portilla’s text leaves “relajo” untranslated, but offers several explanations for the term, arguing that such a phenomenon is not unique to Mexico, nor to the mid-Twentieth Century. It is a universal concern that is pressing today, at least for those interested in value, community, authenticity, and truth. For those not interested, well they can go fuck themselves! HA! Now, if I repeated such frivolity and my value-apathetic jocularity spread like a contagion to others, wholly undermining the seriousness embedded in this earnest philosophical investigation into relajo , well, then I might be engaged in something akin to relajo. Portilla suggests an ironic attitude as a means for transcending relajo , the mind-set that is absolutely disinterested in any value, often expressed in repetitive, contagious, and disruptive laughter that undermines personal responsibility and the possibility of genuine community that would otherwise seek truth and solidarity. Indeed, it is an “undiagnosed crisis,” but one that can be raised to consciousness via a properly constituted ironic stance. But, what sort of irony, and could such an ironic attitude suffice for Portilla’s values? What role might humor play in attaining and sustaining value, community, authenticity, freedom, and truth? Can a humorous-ironic attitude be an antidote against the disease of absolute apathy and permanent suspension of seriousness on the one hand, and the absolute dogmatic spirit of seriousness , what Portilla calls the apretado , on the other?

Emil M. Cioran’s comic and ludic sagacity provides him with a unique title in the modern age—The Sardonic Philosopher. Here I suggest that perhaps his greatest work, The Trouble with Being Born, is not merely another of Cioran’s attempts at wrangling with the personal and profound pessimism that he expresses in many of his early works such as On the Heights of Despair and A Short History of Decay, which are lyrical but harsh, insightful but nihilistic. Rather, The Trouble with Being Born is found upon close examination to be something a bit different: a more nuanced prose poem of bitter realization, scornful humor and ludic wisdom. In this work, Cioran quickly indicts birth and appears to be traversing familiar ground—seething and stewing in the absurdity and pain of existence. But he finds a way out of those depths first by a profound scorn and scoff of existence and then to personal affirmation and finally to a smile or grin, if not an audible chuckle. This article explores the ludic wisdom and deep gaiety in Cioran's ideas and suggests that there is reason to see Cioran as closing ranks with the other “Laughing Philosophers”—Democritus, Epicurus, Montaigne, and Santayana—or, if not completely able to join that select group, he may at least be understood as one who entered existence crying, but exits with a grin on his face.

A drag queen, a rap superstar, and a double entendre walked onto the set of a reality show … and revamped a prevailing assumption about humor. A common view holds that explaining a joke weakens or eliminates its humorous appeal, but is this always true? An episode of  Ru Paul’s Drag Race  in which Nicki Minaj appeared as a guest judge casts doubt on the adage that explanation kills a joke and presents an opportunity to consider cases in which it might confer benefits. Using Minaj as an illustrative example, I first propose that explaining a joke is not always a detriment. From there, I consider the possibility that some jokes might be enhanced by explanation. Finally, I investigate the potential for explaining a joke to serve as an exercise in community-building by expanding its reach to facilitate intimacy among a broader audience.

Research on humor and teaching often focuses on the students. Scholarship is rightly concerned with how students react to teachers who use humor in the classroom, the different kinds of humor teachers use, and whether humor helps student learning outcomes and emotional stability. It is rare for research projects to consider how using humor in higher education can give the teacher a beneficial, positive, or refreshed attitude toward their own identity as a teacher or professor or scholar. The self-identity of professors and teachers is an important consideration in times of administrative challenges. This paper will address how we can better understand humor by and for teachers, with special attention to philosophy teachers.