Dream Theorists
There is no proven fact on why we dream, which is why there are so many theories on the topic. There is Freud's theory that dreams carry our hidden desires and there is Jung's theory that dreams carry meaning, although not always of desire, and that these dreams can be interpreted by the dreamer. After these theories, others continued such as the Cayce theory in that dreams are our bodies means of building up of the mental, spiritual and physical well-being. Finally came the argument between Evans' theory and the Crick and Mitchinson theory. Evans states that dreaming is our bodies way of storing the vast array of information gained during the day, whereas Crick and Mitchinson say that this information is being dumped rather than stored. Whichever theory is true, we may never know, but from these following theories we can decide for ourselves what we believe to be true and further help us into understanding our dreams.
Freud's Theory
Out of all theories before his, and all of those today, this is the one that stands out the most. He believed that a dream represented an ongoing wish along with the previous days activities. They may even portray wishes that have been inside us since early childhood. In fact, he believed, every dream is partially motivated by a childhood wish. Another interesting idea was that nothing is made up during a dream and that they are biologically determined, derived completely from instinctual needs and personal experiences.
Probably one of the most interesting ideas among these theories is his theory of dream occurrence. Dreams occur in a state of "ego collapse" when the demands of the Id (imperative bodily needs) and Superego (conscience ego ideals) converge upon the Ego (personal desires and mediator between the Id and Superego). In easier terms, a dream will occur when the unconscious wish is bound to the preconscious instead of just being discharged.
Many of Freud's theories still stand true today, but most of all in the area of defense mechanisms our body uses while we dream. If our minds have been dealing with too much denial, regression, or repression, it causes an internal conflict, a dream in this case, to take place. This prevents us from building up intolerable states of psychological tension in waking life. This is why, if you become too emotional, it actually works to "sleep it off."
According to Jung
Jung, disagreeing with Freud's theory, quickly developed his own which contradicted Freud's. Jung believed the most effective method for dream interpretation was the use of series correlation. Freud didn't even believe interpretation was possible by the dreamer and that dreams could only be interpreted by a trained psychologist. Jung was the one who gave hope to all dreamers who were looking for the meaning in our dreams without having to hire a "professional."
Series correlation is a process involving the analysis of dreams over time. Jung suggested taking similar dreams from you dream journal and merging the dream images together forming a larger dream. Try and gather these images into your head, he suggested, and from these images determined if there are any waking situations that might be related. From this information write out a physical action that could be taken based off of the information learned through using this technique.
Like Freud, Jung categorized the mind into three parts: the collective unconscious, the personal unconscious, and the conscious. The collective unconscious consists of imbedded deposits of world processes. It does not depend on personal experience, only the images which are prefigured by evolution. The personal unconscious is a receptacle or storage mechanism for that which is not contained within the consciousness. It holds forgotten association, unnoticed experiences, observations, moral questioning, repressed and discarded thoughts, half-thoughts, seemingly irrelevant details, and incongruities. Finally comes the consciousness, wich develops through sensing, thinking, and intuition.
When Jung interpreted dreams he found that the most important thing to do was ask yourself questions about the images in your dreams and from these questions, write down all of the associations you can think of. Here are the questions he would ask himself:
What is the shape of the image?
What is the function of the image?
What alterations does the image go through?
What does the image do?
What do you like and dislike about the image?
What does the image remind you of?
(http://library.thinkquest.org/)
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Freud and Jung: Why We Dream?
Dream History: Modern Philosophies
Probably the most well-known of the modern dream philosophers was Sigmund Freud. His theory was that although dreams may be prompted by external stimuli, wish-fulfillment was the root behind most of our dreams. Freud's idea was that our dreams were reflection of our deepest desires going back to our childhood. To Freud, no dream was of entertainment value, they all held important meanings.
Carl Jung, a student of Freud for some time, disagreed on the theory that erotic content was the basis behind most of our dreams. Jung believed that dreams reminded us of our wishes, which enables us to realize the things we unconsciously yearn for, and helps us to fulfill our own wishes. Contradictory to how Freud believed dreams were a product of our desires that were too outrageous for our own belief, and were in our unconscious to help conceal these desires. These dreams were messages, Jung believed, from ourselves to ourselves and that we should pay attention to them for our own benefit.
Today, most psychologists agree with Jung's theory, and it is this theory that makes dream interpretation something that we can use in our everyday lives. If Freud were alive today his would disagree with every theory that says you are able to interpret your own dreams. Jung believed that, although it was difficult, dreams were meant to be understood.
(library.thinkquest.org/)
PHILOSOPHY OF DREAM
One dreams many things that are never to be experienced in this life such as “He dreams he
is flying in the air.”
A dream is not an entirely new experience, because most often it is the memory of past
experiences.
In the waking state the light of the self is mixed up with the functions of the organs, intellect,
mind, external lights etc. In dreams the self becomes distinct and isolated as the organs do not act
and the lights such as the sun that help them are absent.
The dreamer is not affected by whatever result of the good and evil he sees in the dream
state. No one regards himself a sinner on account of the sins committed in dreams. People who have
heard of them do not condemn or shun them. Hence he is not touched by them.
The dreamer only appears to be doing things in dream but actually there is no activity The
Sruti says, “He sees to be enjoying himself in the company of women.” (Bri. Up. IV. iii. 13.) He
who described his dream experiences uses the words ‘as if’; “I saw today as if a herd of elephants
was running.” Therefore the dreaming self has no activity in dreams.
An action is done by the contact of the body and the senses, which have form with
something else that has form. We never see a formless thing being active. The Self is formless.
Therefore it is not attached. As this Self is unattached, it is untouched by what it beholds in dreams.
Hence we cannot ascribe activity to it, as activity proceeds from the contact of the body and the
organs. There is no contact for the Self, because this infinite Self is unattached. Therefore it is
immortal.
Doctors say, “Do not wake him up suddenly or violently”, because they see that in dreams
the self goes out of the body of the waking state through the gates of the organs and remains isolated
outside. If the self is violently aroused it may not find those gates of the organs. If he does not find
the right organ the body becomes difficult to doctor. The self may not get back to those gates of the
organs, things which it sent out taking the shining functions of the latter, or it may misplace those
functions. In that case defects such as blindness and deafness may result. The doctor may find it
difficult to treat them.
Dreams are due to mental impressions (Vasanas) received in the waking state. The
consciousness in a dream depends on the previous knowledge acquired in the wakeful state.
The dreams have the purpose of either cheering or saddening and frightening the sleeper, so
as to requite him for his good and evil deeds. His Adrishta thus furnishes the efficient cause of the
dreams.
Even in the state of dream the instruments of the self are not altogether at rest, because
scripture states that even then it is connected with Buddhi (intellect). “Having become a dream,
together with Buddhi it passes beyond this world.”
Smriti also says, “When the senses being at rest, the mind not being at rest, is occupied with
the objects, know that state to be a dream.”
Scripture says that desires etc. are modifications of the mind (Bri, Up. I-v-3). Desires are
observed in dreams. Therefore, the self wanders about in dreams together with the mind only.
The scripture in describing our doings in dreams qualifies them by an ‘as it were’. “As it
were rejoicing together with women, or laughing as it were, or seeing terrible sights”. Ordinary people also describe the dreams in the same manner. “I ascended as it were the
summit of a mountain, I saw a tree, as it were”.
Dream creation is unreal. Reality implies the factors of time, space and causation. Further,
reality cannot be sublated or stultified. Dream creation has not got these traits.
Dream is called ‘Sandhya’ or the intermediate state because it is midway between waking
and the deep sleep state, between the Jagrat and the Sushupti.
Dreams, though of a strange and illusory nature, are a good index of the high or low spiritual
and moral condition of the dreamer. He, who has a pure heart and untainted character, will never get
impure dreams. An aspirant who is ever meditating will dream of his Sadhana and his object of
meditation. He will do worship of the Lord and recite His name and Mantra even in dream through
the force of Samskara.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Humor, Laughter, Comedy, and the Holy Grail
The majority of the work on humor has been occupied with the foundational question – just what is humor? The word "humor" itself is of relatively recent origin: according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it arose during the 17th century out of psycho-physiological scientific speculation on the effects of various humors that might affect a person's temperament. Much of the earlier humor research is riddled with equivocations between humor and laughter, and the problem continues into recent discussions. John Dewey states one reason to make the distinction: "The laugh is by no means to be viewed from the standpoint of humor; its connection with humor is only secondary. It marks the ending [. . .] of a period of suspense, or expectation, all ending which is sharp and secondary" (John Dewey, 558). We laugh for a variety of reasons – hearing a funny joke, inhaling laughing gas, being tickled – not all of which result from what we think of as humor. Attempting to offer a general theory of laughter and humor, John Morreall makes a finer distinction: laughter results from a pleasant psychological shift, whereas, humor arises from a pleasant cognitive shift. Noting the predominance of non-humorous laughter, researcher Robert Provine argues that laughter is most often found in non-humorous social interactions, deployed as some sort of tension relief mechanism. If humor is not a necessary condition of laughter, then we might ask if it is sufficient. Often humor will produce laughter, but sometimes it results in only a smile. Obviously, these relatively distinct phenomena are intimately connected in some manner, but to understand the relationship we need clearer notions of both laugher and humor.
Laughter is a fairly well described physiological process that results in a limited range of characteristic vocal patterns that are only physiologically possible, as Provine suggests, for bi-pedal creatures with breath control. If we describe humorous laughter as laughter in response to humor, then we must answer the question, What is humor? This topic will be explored in the next few sections, but for starters, we can say that humor or amusement is widely regarded as a response to a certain kind of stimulus. The comic, on the other hand, is best described as a professionally produced source of humor, a generic element of various artforms. In distinguishing between humorous and non-humorous laughter we presuppose a working definition of humor, based partly on the character of our response and partly on the properties of humorous objects. This is not necessarily to beg the question about what is humor, but to enter into the real world process of correctively developing a definition. The first goal of a humor theory is to look for the basis of our practical ability to identify humor.
Most definitions of humor are essentialist in that they try to list the necessary and sufficient conditions something must meet in order to be counted as humor. Some theories isolate a common element supposedly found in all humor, but hold back from making claims about the sufficient conditions. Many theorists seem to confuse offering the necessary conditions for a response to count as humor with explaining why we find one thing funny rather than another. This second question, what would be sufficient for an object to be found funny, is the Holy Grail of humor studies, and must be kept distinct from the goals of a definition of the humor response. The Holy Grail is often confused with a question regarding the sufficient conditions for our response to count as humorous amusement, but a crucial distinction needs to be made: identifying the conditions of a response is different from the isolating the features something must possess in order to provoke such a response. The first task is much different from suggesting what features are sufficient to provoke a response of humorous amusement. What amounts to a humor response is different from what makes something humorous. The noun (humor) and adjectival (humorous) senses of the term are difficult to keep distinct due to the imprecision of our language in this area. Much of the dissatisfaction with traditional humor theories can be traced back to an equivocation between these two senses of the term.
(by: http://www.iep.utm.edu/h/humor.htm#H2)
Problems Classifying Theorists
The standard analysis, developed by D. H. Monro, that classifies humor theories into superiority, incongruity, and relief theories sets up a false expectation of genuine competition between the views. Rarely do any of the historical theorists in any of these schools state their theories as listing necessary of sufficient conditions for something to count as humor, much less put their views in competition with others. A further problem concerns just what the something is that might be called humor. Some theories address the object of humor, whereas others are concerned primarily with the characteristics of the response, and other theories discuss both.
The popular reduction of humor theories into three groups -- Incongruity, Relief, and Superiority theories -- is an over simplification. Several scholars have identified over 100 types of humor theories, and Patricia Keith-Spiegel's classification of humor theories into 8 major types (biological, superiority, incongruity, surprise, ambivalence, release, configuration, and psychoanalytic theories) has been fairly influential. Jim Lyttle suggests that, based on the question they are primarily addressing humor, theories can be classified into 3 different groups. He argues that, depending on their focus, humor theories can be grouped under these categories: functional, stimuli, and response theories. (1) Functional theories of humor ask what purpose humor has in human life. (2) Stimuli theories ask what makes a particular thing funny. (3) Response theorists ask why we find things funny. A better way to phrase this concern is to say that response theorists ask what is particular about feelings of humor.
A little probing shows that Lyttle's grouping is strained, since many of the humor theories address more than one of these questions, and an answer to one often involves an answer to the other questions. For instance, though focused on the function of humor, relief theories often have something to say about all three questions: humor serves as a tension release mechanism, the content often concerns the subject of repressed desires, and finding these funny involves a feeling of relief.
Regardless of the classificatory scheme, when analyzing the tradition of humor theories we need to consider how each of the traditionally defined schools answers the major questions that occupy the bulk of the discussion. The primary questions of humor theory include:
1. Humor question: What is humor?
An answer to this question often entails answers to questions regarding the object and the response. This is the central question of any humor theory.
2. Object Feature Questions:
a) Are there any features frequently found in what is found funny?
b) Are there any features necessary for something to have in order to be found funny?
c) Are there any features that by themselves or considered jointly are sufficient for something to be found funny? Answering this question affirmatively would amount to discovering the holy grail of humor theory.
3. Response Question: Is there anything psychologically or cognitively distinctive or characteristic about finding something funny?
4. Laughter question: How is humor related to laughter?
Given this list, we may ask what would a theory of humor amount to? To count as a humor theory and not just an approach to humor, a theory must attempt an answer to question 1 – What is humor? Like the relief theories, most humor theorists do not attempt to answer this question head on, but discuss some important or necessary characteristics of humor. Since the various theories of humor are addressing different sets of questions within this cluster as well as related question in the general study of humor, it is often difficult to put them in competition with each other. Accepting this limitation, we can proceed to explore a few of the major humor theories listed in the widely influential standard analysis.
(by: http://www.iep.utm.edu/h/humor.htm#H2)
Summary of Humor Theories
We discussed four different schools of humor theories, and noted how each reveals aspects common, if not necessary, to humor. Presenting these theories as rivals is misleading since, as we have seen, theorists in each classification focus on different problems and may draw upon the answers to different questions from another school. For instance, while focusing on why we find something funny, Spencer offers a functional explanation and relies on the answer incongruity theorists give to the question of what we find funny. Relief theories and Play theories tend to focus on the function humor serves in human life, though the functional question cannot be separated from characterizing amusement, or the humor response. Superiority theorists tend to focus on what feelings are necessary for there to be humor, or why we find some things funny. Incongruity theories have the most to say about the object of humor, though variants identify humor with the way we respond to a perceived incongruity. Though the functional, stimuli, and response questions are not neatly separated, the differing schools tend to assume that one question is more basic than the others.
(by: http://www.iep.utm.edu/h/humor.htm#H2)
Theories of Humor: Play Theories
Describing play theories of humor as an independent school or approach might overstate their relative importance, although they do serve as a good representative of theories focused on the functional question. By looking at the contextual characteristic, play theories try to classify humor as a species of play. In this general categorization effort, the play theorists are not so much listing necessary conditions, as they are asking us to look at humor as an extension of animal play. They try to call our attention to the structural similarities between play contexts and humorous context, to suggest that what might be true of play, might be true of humor as well.
Play theorists often take an ethological approach to studying humor, tracing it back through evolutionary development. They look at laughter triggers like tickling, that are found in other species, to suggest that in humor ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. In The Enjoyment of Laughter, Max Eastman develops a play theory of humor with an adaptive story. He thinks we can find analogies of humor in the behavior of animals, especially in the proto-laughter of chimps to tickling. He goes so far as to argue that the wagging tail of a happy dog is a form of humorous laughter, since Eastman wants to broaden the definition of laughter to encompass other rhythmic responses to pleasure. Speaking more specifically of humor, he argues that "we come into the world endowed with an instinctive tendency to laugh and have this feeling in response to pains presented playfully" (Eastman, 45). On Eastman's account, what is central to humor and play is that both require taking a disinterested attitude towards what might otherwise be seen as serious.
Eastman considers humor to be a form of play, because humor involves a disinterested stance, certain kinds of humor involve mock aggression and insults, and because some forms of play activities result in humorous amusement. Since Eastman defines play as the adoption of this disinterested attitude, humor would count as a form of play on his definition, but this seems both too restrictive and too vague to serve as an adequate definition of play. In Homo Ludens, John Huizinga criticizes identifying play with laughter or the comic. Though both seem to involve "the opposite of seriousness," there are crucial asymmetries. Laughter, he argues, is particular to humans, whereas, play is found in other mammals and birds. Also, if we allow for certain types of competitive play, then a non-serious attitude is not essential to play, as it seems to be for humor. Identifying the comic, or humor, with play is problematic, since "in itself play is not comical for either for the player or public" (Homo Ludens, 6). Huizinga questions whether humor and play share any necessary conditions, a requirement of the relationship if humor is a subtype of play. This will, of course, depend on how we describe humor and play, two equally elusive notions.
Play theorists are primarily concerned with the problem of determining the function of humor in order to explain how it might have adaptive value, a task taken up by other biological theories of humor. They argue that similarities between play and humor suggest that the adaptive value of play might be similar to that of humor. Other researchers focused on the functional questions have described humor as having value in cognitive development, social skill learning, tension relief, empathy management, immune system benefits, stress relief, and social bonding. Though these questions are primarily addressed by psychologists, sociologist, anthropologists, and medical researchers, their studies rely on and contribute to an evolving notion of just what counts as humor. Though the functional question is foremost in these theories, play theory tries to give humor a genus by offering some differentiating characteristics, essential to humor.
(by: www.iep.utm.edu/h/humor.htm#H2)
Theories of Humor: Incongruity Theory
The incongruity theory is the reigning theory of humor, since it seems to account for most cases of perceived funniness, which is partly because "incongruity" is something of an umbrella term. Most developments of the incongruity theory only try to list a necessary condition for humor – the perception of an incongruity – and they stop short of offering the sufficient conditions.
In the Rhetoric (III, 2), Aristotle presents the earliest glimmer of an incongruity theory of humor, finding that the best way to get an audience to laugh is to setup an expectation and deliver something "that gives a twist." After discussing the power of metaphors to produce a surprise in the hearer, Aristotle says that "[t]he effect is produced even by jokes depending upon changes of the letters of a word; this too is a surprise. You find this in verse as well as in prose. The word which comes is not what the hearer imagined." These remarks sound like a surprise theory of humor, similar to that later offered by Descartes, but Aristotle continues to explain how the surprise must somehow "fit the facts," or as we might put it today, the incongruity must be capable of a resolution.
In the Critique of Judgment (I, I, 54), Kant gives a clearer statement of the role of incongruity in humor: "In everything that is to excite a lively laugh there must be something absurd (in which the understanding, therefore, can find no satisfaction). Laughter is an affection arising from the sudden transformation of a strained expectation into nothing."
Schopenhauer offers a more specific version of the incongruity theory, arguing that humor arising from a failure of a concept to account for an object of thought. When the particular outstrips the general, we are faced with an incongruity. Schopenhauer also emphasizes the element of surprise, saying that "the greater and more unexpected [. . .] this incongruity is, the more violent will be his laughter."
As stated by Kant and Schopenhauer, the incongruity theory of humor specifies a necessary condition of the object of humor. Focusing on the humorous object, leaves something out of the analysis of humor, since there are many kinds of things that are incongruous which do not produce amusement. A more robust statement of the incongruity theory would need to include the pleasurable response one has to humorous objects. John Morreall attempts to find sufficient conditions for identifying humor by focusing on our response. He defines humorous amusement as taking pleasure in a cognitive shift. The incongruity theory can be stated as a response focused theory, claiming that humor is a certain kind of reaction had to perceived incongruity.
Henri Bergson's essay "Laughter" is perhaps the one of the most influential and sophisticated theories of humor. Bergson's theory of humor is not easily classifiable, since it has elements of superiority and incongruity theories. In a famous phrase, Bergson argues that the source of humor is the "mechanical encrusted upon the living" (Bergson, 84) According to Bergson "the comic does not exist outside of what is strictly human." He thinks that humor involve an incongruous relationship between human intelligence and habitual or mechanical behaviors. As such, humor serves as a social corrective, helping people recognize behaviors that are inhospitable to human flourishing. A large source of the comic is in recognizing our superiority over the subhuman. Anything that threatens to reduce a person to an object – either animal or mechanical – is prime material for humor. No doubt, Bergson's theory accounts for much of physical comedy and bodily humor, but he seems to over-estimate the necessity of mechanical encrustation. It is difficult to see how his theory can accommodate most jokes and sources of humor coming from wit.
Three major criticisms of the incongruity theory are that it is too broad to be very meaningful, it is insufficiently explanatory in that it does not distinguish between non-humorous incongruity and basic incongruity, and that revised versions still fail to explain why some things, rather than others, are funny. We have already addressed the third criticism: it confuses the object of humor with the response. What is at issue is the definition of humor, or how to identify humor, not how to create a humor-generating algorithm. The incongruity theorist has a response to this criticism as well, since they can claim that humor is pleasure in incongruity.
(by: www.iep.utm.edu/h/humor.htm#H2)
Theories of Humor: Relief Theory
Relief theories attempt to describe humor along the lines of a tension-release model. Rather than defining humor, they discuss the essential structures and psychological processes that produce laughter. The two most prominent relief theorists are Herbert Spencer and Sigmund Freud. We can consider two version of the relief theory: (1) the strong version holds that all laughter results from a release of excessive energy; (2) the weak version claims that it is often the case that humorous laughter involves a release of tension or energy. Freud develops a more specific description of the energy transfer mechanism, but the process he describes is not essential to the basic claims of the relief theory of humor.
In "The Physiology of Laughter," Spencer develops a theory of laughter that is intimately related to his "hydraulic" theory of nervous energy, whereby excitement and mental agitation produces energy that "must expend itself in some way or another." He argues that "nervous excitation always tends to beget muscular motion." As a form of physical movement, laughter can serve as the expressive route of various forms of nervous energy. Spencer did not see his theory as a competitor to the incongruity theory of humor; rather, he tried to explain why it is that a certain mental agitation arising from a "descending incongruity" results in this characteristically purposeless physical movement. Spencer never satisfactorily answers this specific question, but he presents the basic idea that laughter serves to release pent up energy.
One criticism of Spencer's theory of energy relief is that it does not seem to describe most cases of humor that occur quickly. Many instances of jokes, witticisms, and cartoons do not seem to involve a build up of energy that is then released. Perhaps Spencer thinks that the best explanation for laughter, an otherwise purposeless expenditure of energy, must be that it relieves energy produced from humor. However, since most of our experiences of humor do not seem to involve an energy build up, and humor does not seem forthcoming when we are generally agitated, a better explanation might be that laughter is not as purposeless as it seems or that all expenditures of energy, purposeful or not, need involve a build up.
Spencer might reply that everyone is continuously building up energy simply through the process of managing everyday stress. As such, most people have excess energy, a form of energy potential, waiting to be released by humor. For example, one often hears it said that humor allows one to "blow off steam" after a stressful day at work. The problem with this line of argument is that those who are most "stressed out" seem the least receptive to humor. Not only do attempts at humor frequently fall flat on the hurried, the amusement that results is typically minimal. Perhaps Spencer could argue that at a certain threshold the pent up energy jams the gates such that humor is unable to provide a release. This line of defense might be plausible, but the tension release theory starts to look a bit ad hoc when you have to posit things such as jammed energy release gates and the like.
In "Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious," Freud develops a more fine grained version of the relief theory of laughter, that amounts to a restatement of Spencer's theory with the addition of a new process. He describes three different sources of laughter – joking, the comic, and humor – which all involve the saving of some psychic energy that is then discharged through laughter. In joking, the energy that would have been used to repress sexual and hostile feelings is saved and can be released in laughter. In the comic, cognitive energy to be used to solve an intellectual challenge is left over and can be released. The humorous involves a saving of emotional energy, since what might have been an emotion provoking situation turns out to be something we should treat non-seriously. The energy building up for the serious emotional reaction can then be released.
The details of Freud's discussions of the process of energy saving, are widely regarded as problematic. His notion of energy saving is unclear, since it is not clear what sense it makes to say that energy which is never called upon is saved, rather than saying that no energy was expended. Take his theory of jokes, where the energy that otherwise would have been used to repress a desire is saved by joking which allows for aggression to be released. Morreall and Carroll make a similar criticism of this theory of energy management. We may have an idea of what it is like to express pent up energy, but we have no notion of what it would be to release energy that is used to repress a desire. Beyond the claim of queerness, this theory of joking does not result in the expected empirical observations. On Freud's explanation, the most inhibited and repressed people would seem to enjoy joking the most, though the opposite is the case.
Relief theories of laughter do not furnish us a way to distinguish humorous from non-humorous laughter. Freud's saved energy is perceptually indistinguishable with other forms of energy. As we saw with Spencer, Relief theories must be saddled to another theory of humor. Freud's attempt to explain why we laugh is also an effort to explain why we find certain tendentious jokes especially funny, though it is not clear what he is getting at in his account of the saving of energy. He commits the fundamental mistake of relief theorists -- they erroneously assume that since mental energy often finds release in physical movement, any physical movement must be explainable by an excess of nervous energy.
(by: www.iep.utm.edu/h/)
Theories of Humor: Superiority Theory
We can give two forms to the claims of the superiority theory of humor: (1) the strong claim holds that all humor involves a feeling of superiority, and (2) the weak claim suggests that feelings of superiority are frequently found in many cases of humor. It is not clear that many superiority theorists would hold to the strong claim if pressed, but we will evaluate as a necessary condition nonetheless.
Neither Plato nor Aristotle makes clear pronouncements about the essence of humor, though their comments are preoccupied with the role of feelings of superiority in our finding something funny. In the "Philebus," Plato tries to expose the "mixture of pleasure and pain that lies in the malice of amusement." He argues that ignorance is a misfortune that when found in the weak is considered ridiculous. In comedy, we take malicious pleasure from the ridiculous, mixing pleasure with a pain of the soul. Some of Aristotle's brief comments in the Poetics corroborate Plato's view of the pleasure had from comedy. Tragedy deals with subjects who are average or better than average; however, in comedy we look down upon the characters, since it presents subjects of lesser virtue than, or "who are inferior to," the audience. The "ludicrous," according to Aristotle, is "that is a failing or a piece of ugliness which causes no pain of destruction" (Poetics, sections 3 and 7). Going beyond the subject of comedy, in the Rhetoric (II, 12) Aristotle defines wit as "educated insolence," and in the Nicomachean Ethics (IV, 8) he describes jokes as "a kind of abuse" which should ideally be told without producing pain. Rather than clearly offering a superiority theory of humor, Plato and Aristotle focus on this common comic feature, bringing it to our attention for ethical considerations.
Thomas Hobbes developed the most well known version of the Superiority theory. Giving emphatic expression to the idea, Hobbes says "that the passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly" (Human Nature, ch. 8). Motivated by the literary conceit of the laugh of triumph, Hobbes's expression the superiority theory looks like more of a theory of laughter than a theory of humor. Baudelaire offers an interesting variation on Hobbes' superiority theory, mixing it with mortal inferiority. He argues that that "laughter is satanic" -- an expression of dominance over animals and a frustrated complaint against our being merely mortal.
Critically reversing the superiority theory, Robert Solomon offers an "inferiority theory" of humor. He thinks that self-recognition in the silly antics and self-deprecating behavior of the Three Stooges is characteristic of a source of humor based in inferiority or modesty. Rather than comparing our current with our former inferior selves, Solomon sees the ability to not take yourself seriously, or to see yourself as less than ideal, as a source of virtuous modesty and compassion. Solomon's analysis of the Three Stooges is not a full-blown theory of humor, in that it does not make any pronouncements about the necessary or sufficient conditions of humor; however, it is a theory of humor in the sense that it suggests a possible source of humor or what humor can be and how it might function.
Solomon's "inferiority theory" of humor raises a central objection against the Superiority theory, namely, that a feeling of superiority is not a necessary condition of humor. Morreall offers several examples, such as finding a bowling ball in his refrigerator, that could be found funny, but do not clearly involve superiority. If feelings of superiority are not necessary for humor, are they sufficient? Undoubtedly, this is not the case. As an 18th century critic of Hobbes, Francis Hutcheson, points out, we can feel superior to lots of things, dogs, cats, trees, etc, without being amused: "some ingenuity in dogs and monkeys, which comes near to some of our own arts, very often makes us merry; whereas their duller actions, in which the are much below us, are no matter of jest at all" (29). However, if we evaluate the weaker version of the superiority theory – that humor is often fueled by feelings of superiority – then we have a fairly well supported empirical claim, easily confirmable by first hand observation.
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