The incomprehensible, mind-cracking Kant:

[Roger Bissell]

From section 54 ("Remark") of "The Critique of Aesthetic Judgment," which is the first part of Kant's The Critique of Judgment (1790)

Kant explains how jest or wit (Gedankenspiel) involves thoughts that "engage the activity of the body" and thus is "a source of gratification, because it promotes the feeling of health."

In this presentation the understanding, missing what it expected, suddenly lets go its hold, with the result that the effect of this slackening is felt in the body by the oscillation of the organs. This favours the restoration of the equilibrium of the latter and exerts a beneficial influence upon the health.

Something absurd (something in which, therefore, the understanding can of itself find no delight) must be present in whatever is to raise a hearty convulsive laugh. Laughter is an affection arising from a strained expectation being suddenly reduced to nothing. [Emphasis in original. Compare this with Rand's assertion that humor is the denial of metaphysical significance to the object of humor.] This very reducion, at which certainly understanding cannot rejoice, is stil indirectly a source of very lively enjoyment for a moment. Its cause must consequently lie in the influence of the representation upon the body and the reciprocal effect of this upon the mind. This, morover, cannot depend upon the representation being objectively an object of gratification (for how can we derive gratification from a disappointment?) but must rest solely upon the fact that the reduction is a mere play of representations, and, as such, produces an equilibrium of the vital forces of the body.

Suppose that some one tells the following story: An Indian at an Englishman's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale opened, and all the beer turned into froth and flowing out. The repeated exclamations of the Indian showed his great astonishment. "Well, what is so wonderful in that?" asked the Englishman. "Oh, I'm not surprised myself," said the Indian, "at its getting out, but at how you ever managed to get it all in." At this we laugh, and it gives us hearty pleasure. This is not because we think ourselves, maybe, more quick-witted than this ignorant Indian, or because our understanding here brings to our notice any other ground of delight. It is rather that the bubble of our expectation was extended to the full and suddenly went off into nothing.

Or, again, take the case of the heir of a wealthy relative being minded to make preparations for having the funeral obsequies on a most imposing scale, but complaining that things would no go right for him, because (as he said) "the more money I give my mourners to look sad, the more pleased they look." At this we laugh outright, and the reason lies in the fact that we had an expectation which is suddenly reduced to nothing.

We must be careful to observe that the reduction is not one into the positive contrary of an expected object--for that is always something, and may frequently pain us--but must be a reduction to nothing. For where a person arouses great expectation by recounting some tale, and at the close its untruth becomes at once apparent to us, we are displeased at it. So it is, for instance, with the tale of people whose hair from excess of grief is said to have turned white in a single night. On the other hand, if a wag wishing to cap the story, tells with the utmost circumstantiality of a merchant's grief, who, on his return journey from India to Europe with all his wealth in merchandise, was obliged by stress of storm to throw everything overboard, and grieved to such an extent that in the selfsame night his wig turned grey, we laugh and enjoy the tale. This is because we keep for a time playing on our own mistake about an object otherwise indifferent to use, or rather on the idea we ourselves were following out, and, beating it to and fro, just as if it were a ball eluding our grasp, when all we intend to do is just to get it into our hands and hold it tight. Here our gratification is not excited by a knave or a fool getting a rebuff; for, even on its own account, the latter tale told with an air of seriousness would of itself be enough to set a whole table into roars of laughter; and the other matter would ordinarily not be worth a moment's thought.

Kant continues with thoughts about the relationship between the mental and the physiological aspects of humor, and he concedes that humor "belongs to originality of mind (des Geistes), though not to the talent for fine art. Humour, in a good sense, means the talent for being able to put oneself at will into a certain frame of mind in which everything is estimated on lines that go quite off the beaten track (a topsy-turvy view of things), and yet on lines that follow certain principles, rational in the case of such a mental temperament." He concludes with a distinction between having a sense of humor and being humorous: "A person with whom such variations are not a matter of choice is said to have humours; but if a person can assume them voluntarily and of set purpose (on behalf of a lively presentation drawn from a ludicrous contrast), he and his way of speaking are termed humorous."

Now, ~that~ is a pretty decent discourse on the nature of humor, especially considering it was written nearly 220 years ago.

REB

P.S. -- Kant also displayed a rather perceptive as well as humorous insight into the nature and effects of music (despite his other errors or ignorance on the subject) in this passage from section 53 ("Comparative estimate of the aesthetic worth of the fine arts").

[

M]usic has a certain lack of urbanity about it. For owing chiefly to the character of its instruments, it scatters its influence abroad to an uncalled-for extent (through the neighbourhood), and thus, as it were, becomes obtrusive and deprives others, outside the musical circle, of their freedom. This is a thing that the arts that address themselves to the eye do not do for if one is not disposed to give admittance to their impressions, one has only to look the other way. The case is almost on a par with the practice of regaling oneself with a perfume that exhales its odours far and wide. The man who pulls his perfumed handkerchief from his pocket gives a treat to all around whether they like it or not, and compels them, if they want to breathe at all, to be parties to the enjoyment, and so the habit has gone out of fashion.

[Footnote by Kant:] Those who have recommended the singing of hymns at family prayers have forgotten the amount of annoyance which they give to the general public by such noisy (and, as a rule, for that very reason, pharisaical) worship, for they compel their neighbours either to join in the singing or else abandon their meditations.

Based on these few examples, I would say that the "most evil man in the world" has a significantly better, and more benevolent, sense of humor than some Objectivists who have held forth on the subject....

[Newberry]

Based on these few examples, I would say that the "most evil man in the world" has a significantly better, and more benevolent, sense of humor than some Objectivists who have held forth on the subject....

So how does sense of humor fit into aesthetic thought? And could there not be people with humor that are evil? I have an evil relative, yet we share family humor, it always irks me!!! hahhahhah.