PvI#99: Philosophy of Humor w/ Nessa Voss

Nessa teaches philosophy at Lone Star Community College and writes on the philosophy of humor. We’ve amazingly never had an episode specifically about this, so we thought we should get this on the table before we wrap our season (and Bill’s regular participation) and reach 100 episodes.

We go through the main theories (superiority, incongruity/surprise, unconscious triggering, i.e. funny because it’s true on some level we don’t necessarily want to admit). Then Nessa (fictionally) becomes our podcast format consultant. Is there room for pugilism in philosophy? Is King of the Hill too real? Is the hilarity of a joke 90% in its delivery and details? We wrap up by considering the appeal of various stand-up comedians.

Here’s the Dana Carvey clip by Colbert that Nessa refers to about Waiters Nauseated by Food.

The image here is swiped from Instagram. As long-time readers here know, I try to find child drawings relevant to the title/topic, and have more or less despaired in finding good ones, so I am tentatively planning to shift strategies for the new season (as I’ve already done for some recent episodes). This one was a result of an image search for “child’s drawing comedian,” and I found this Instagram and misread it as being by the child, as opposed to being apparently a comedian’s self-portrait “with random marks by my son.” But given that it displays the drawing competence of a child (as would be anything I would personally attempt), it stays!

Hear more PvI. Support the podcast!

You can choose to watch this on YouTube: