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Noel Carroll on Humour

Philosophy Bites

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The Incongruity Theory of Comic Amusement

Philosophers have been interested in comic amusement for a long time. One view is that when we laugh, we laugh at someone who's inferior to us. Hobbes said laughter is the sudden glory we feel when another in comparison to us seems less than us. What philosophers and psychologists including myself now think is what we call an incongruity theory.

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