Hobbes: (with summary)

In Human Nature, Thomas Hobbes concludes that men laugh at “mischances and indecencies,” and that men are often prone to laughing when they feel superior rather than inferior in the situation. Hobbes delves into the idea that men don’t like being laughed at in the present, but they love laughing about their past selves. He discusses the idea that when jokes in comedy are relatable to the person because they have done something in the PAST that’s silly or stupid, it’s a lot easier to laugh at yourself. To laugh at your present self, you have to build up enough courage to be self-aware and see what you are doing in the NOW that is silly/comedic and be able to laugh at yourself at the same time. This type of thing is difficult for humans to do generally in life, let alone in comedy. “…for men laugh at the follies of themselves past, when they come suddenly to remembrance except they bring with them any present dishonor.”

In the excerpt of Critique of Judgement, Immanuel Kant he discusses the idea of “play” and explores why people laugh at jokes. He claims that when someone laughs at a generic joke, “it is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished [transformed] into nothing.”

Arthur Schopenhauer in The World as Will declares that laughter comes from seeing the incongruity between concepts and real objects. “The cause of laughter in every case is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real objects which have been thought through in some relation, and laughter itself is just the expression of this incongruity.”

In The Physiology of Laughter, Spencer talks of laughter being one of the most natural human reactions.