In the late twentieth century, one serious flaw in several older versions of the theory came to light. Since negative emotions like fear, disgust, and anger are also reactions to what violates our mental patterns and expectations the mere perception of incongruity is not sufficient for humour. Other aesthetic categories, too, involve a non-humorous enjoyment of some violation of our mental patterns and expectations: the grotesque, the macabre, the horrible, the bizarre, and the fantastic. So, although the Incongruity Theory freed humour from the traditional stigma of being anti-social, it has not improved philosophers’ assessments of humour much over the last three centuries. In Western science since the Enlightenment, it is an axiom that the
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According to Thomas Schultz, for instance, after the age of seven, we require not just incongruity to be amused, but the resolution of that incongruity (12). The pleasure of humour in a mature person, according to this view, is not the enjoyment of incongruity, but the enjoyment of a kind of puzzle solving similar to what scientists do. As John Lippitt writes, “even if, in any given example of humour, it is possible to identify an element of incongruity, it is not necessarily this incongruity itself which is the predominant reason for amusement” (200). Andrew Stott notices that there must be reason why some things are funny and others are not, which leads us on to explanations rooted in culture and the unconscious …show more content…
In the medical science of the eighteenth century, it was known that nerves connect the brain, sense organs, and muscles. Nerves were thought to carry not electro-chemical impulses, but gases and liquids called “animal spirits.” There was debate over their exact composition, but the animal spirits were thought to include blood and air. John Locke described them as “fluid and subtile atter, passing through the Conduits of the Nerves.”(16) So in the first versions of the Relief Theory, the nervous system was represented as a network of tubes inside which the animal spirits sometimes build up pressure, as in emotional excitement, that calls for release. A good analogy is the way excess steam builds up in a steam boiler. These boilers are fitted with relief valves to vent excess pressure, and, according to the Relief Theory, laughter serves a similar function in the nervous system. Lord Shaftesbury presented the first sketch of the Relief Theory:
The natural free spirits of ingenious men, if imprisoned or controlled, will find out other ways of motion to relieve themselves in their constraint; and whether it be in burlesque, mimicry, or buffoonery, they will be glad at any rate to vent themselves, and be revenged upon their constrainers (qtd. in Morreall Comic
According to Thomas Schultz, for instance, after the age of seven, we require not just incongruity to be amused, but the resolution of that incongruity (12). The pleasure of humour in a mature person, according to this view, is not the enjoyment of incongruity, but the enjoyment of a kind of puzzle solving similar to what scientists do. As John Lippitt writes, “even if, in any given example of humour, it is possible to identify an element of incongruity, it is not necessarily this incongruity itself which is the predominant reason for amusement” (200). Andrew Stott notices that there must be reason why some things are funny and others are not, which leads us on to explanations rooted in culture and the unconscious …show more content…
In the medical science of the eighteenth century, it was known that nerves connect the brain, sense organs, and muscles. Nerves were thought to carry not electro-chemical impulses, but gases and liquids called “animal spirits.” There was debate over their exact composition, but the animal spirits were thought to include blood and air. John Locke described them as “fluid and subtile atter, passing through the Conduits of the Nerves.”(16) So in the first versions of the Relief Theory, the nervous system was represented as a network of tubes inside which the animal spirits sometimes build up pressure, as in emotional excitement, that calls for release. A good analogy is the way excess steam builds up in a steam boiler. These boilers are fitted with relief valves to vent excess pressure, and, according to the Relief Theory, laughter serves a similar function in the nervous system. Lord Shaftesbury presented the first sketch of the Relief Theory:
The natural free spirits of ingenious men, if imprisoned or controlled, will find out other ways of motion to relieve themselves in their constraint; and whether it be in burlesque, mimicry, or buffoonery, they will be glad at any rate to vent themselves, and be revenged upon their constrainers (qtd. in Morreall Comic