Check out the episode page HERE So maybe the best place to begin this episode is to talk about laughter as a marker of happiness. See just like in the Isaiah Berlin episodes: it's not enough to just say Why not both? This is philosophize. That said the incongruity theory needs a little more explanation than the other two. Log in or sign up to leave a comment Log In Sign Up. There seem to be two sides to this debate. Patreon. This tendency has limited them to Bergson...because so often when they look at something like the question "what is funny"...they'll immediately try to understand what we MEAN by the concept of funny...what MAKES something funny...in other words, they try to CATEGORIZE it and nail it down. The idea is: you only contribute when you get more episodes of the show. There wasn't any nervous energy being built up to set up a thwarting of someone's expectations. This idea of the context that we view things within is going to become extremely important when we start looking at the theory of Bergson. 2 - Distraction. Beginner friendly if listened to in order! We'll be looking at a few of them here today. You know, Voltaire had STRONG thoughts on humor and its utility in the public realm. The basic point is this: when we laugh at things it is because at some level we feel superior to some element of the joke or situation. TOP 0.01% Episode #139 ... Friedrich Von Hayek - The Road to Serfdom Feb. 12, 2020. Episode #001 ... Presocratic Philosophy - Ionian. So they went back to the drawing board. 2 - Distraction. You and your friends are walking through the woods...your friend in front of you is looking back telling everyone about how they're about to start their own vape store...and they trip over a log and faceplant into some sort of shrub and EVERYBODY laughs, now...the Superiority theory would say that you and your friends are laughing at that because you're getting a certain amount of joy in knowing that you are superior to this person in this moment. During his time he would just MERCILESSLY make a mockery of Rousseau and his thinking...and he has a famous quote describing why he did it, I'm paraphrasing a bit here but the idea is that he thought once you can get people to LAUGH at something...they never take that thing quite as seriously ever again. Episode #095 ... Are you living in a simulation? The audio file for this episode was lost years ago. A field that during HIS time was practically in its infancy. Comedy is a powerful tool that has the ability to do this. www.philosophizethis.org for additional content. Episode #090 ... Nietzsche pt. Think about it, there are a lot of surprising things you could say... that really aren't that funny at all. So if we want to claim that we've somehow found the FORMULA for laughter we have to be willing to accept that AGAIN, maybe this theory is part of it...but maybe there is more to it that we aren't considering. Look at any antidepressant commercial...when they're reading off all the side effects those people are frolicing through the park laughing about something...I don't know what, but they sure look a lot happier than me. Think of some random object out there...let's just talk about a tree. Philosophize This! Adding comments is not available at this time. The comedian or the comedic writer LOOKS at the world around them...observes the way that things are...they see things that are ridiculous and they point them out ACTIVELY trying to get other people to notice them in an attempt to change their worldview...to put someone IN a position of power in check. Two themes that were CENTRAL to the theater of this period of Athens: comedy and tragedy. Comedy, in other words, is not just telling knock knock jokes...comedy can be one of the most powerful tools a society has to speak truth to power...and I'm sure we can all think of examples of comedians, TV shows, movies, books, etc. So that said...I've thought about it a lot and I think the best way to understand Bergson is to structure it like this: first I want to just SAY WHY Bergson thinks we laugh at things, just get it out there... which probably wont make much sense right now, then I want to do a bit of a historical overview of several key philosophers and why THEY thought we laugh at things, and then I want to return to Bergson and explain how these theories throughout history relate back to what we initially talked about. :). While the SOLUTIONS offered by these two different approaches are VERY DIFFERENT...both of them ultimately aim to subvert the expectations of the viewer. Now real quick it should be said for all three of these: the superiority theory, relief theory AND incongruity theory...I'm just covering the central theme of what these theories are trying to get across...every one of these had several major thinkers that appropriated them and each of those thinkers had their own unique details and terminology when it comes to how they approached them. This is a transcript of episode #097 on Ludwig Wittgenstein. Ed i want episodes this transcript for the only tangentially interested in such a fun! We can see why there might be some sort of negative connotation that could come along with why we laugh when you compare comedy and tragedy. Learn more . Today we discussed the "Out of Africa" theory, the adversity of early humans, the term "Pre-Socratic", the first philosopher Thales, the meanest philosopher Heraclitus and Democritus, the godfather of the theory of atomism. For anyone interested in an educational podcast about philosophy where you don't need to be a graduate-level philosopher to understand it. We have blanket terms like Sports...that includes both football...and badminton. What might otherwise be a sort of nervous energy that would increasingly build and result in people feeling so uncomfortable it would lead to revolution for Adorno...instead we're given bread and circuses to keep us at bay and laughter is the steam being released from the pressure cooker. Proponents of this theory might say...think of laughter as sort of a psychological tool that helps us get back to homeostasis. Now on the other hand there are others that would say that comedy is ALSO a forum for the completely absurd and disingenuous. We go about the stresses of our everyday lives, in other words we fear things within our cultures, we suppress our desires, we create narratives and expectations of ourselves and others and our place in the world...all of this accounting for the true source of that nervous energy that needs to be relieved by laughter. This reminds me of a theory Adorno had which is that as citizens of late stage capitalist totalitarian societies...we watch these products created by the culture industry...we watch these funny TV shows and movies and comedians and we laugh and it distracts us away... from the economic chains we walk around in every day of our life. We find out how Confucius went from being the poor, friendless son of an ancient Chinese 'Teen Mom' to becoming one of the most quoted people in history, as well as how he was reduced to selling his philosophy door-to-door after a … But you can see the tension that might start to arise here...the people that believe only in the truth to power side of comedy might look at the absurd side of comedy and think they're saying things that are affecting people's worldviews that are maybe dangerous...the absurd side of comedy might look at the truth to power people and think they're pigeonholing comedy into these narrow parameters that excludes people that don't want to hear a political lecture, they just want to go down to the comedy club on Friday after work and laugh with their friends about nonsense. Support the show on Patreon! Why when we see people with health problems, relationship problems, financial problems...why are there so many cases of people being worse off than us that don't amuse us at all? podcast and anything else that is interesting. There are several philosophers that were fans of this theory...Aristotle, Schopenhauer, Kant...in fact here is Kant in the Critique of Judgment describing the theory for himself: “In everything that is to excite a lively laugh there must be something absurd (in which the understanding, therefore, can find no satisfaction). Let me explain. Fact is if we're going to say why not both...we NEED a theory of why we laugh at things that can explain why these two seemingly different things are actually very similar. www.philosophizethis.org for additional content. 148 EpisodesProduced by Stephen WestWebsite. For example take the very simple joke, "Did you hear about the mathematician that was afraid of negative numbers? Within a tragedy...some hero may sacrifice themselves or die for some sociopolitical cause, looking to have their death evoke some sort of change...while in comedy the goal is more to shift public consciousness by mocking how ridiculous things have gotten. So some examples of this. Being laughed AT immediately brings up a sense of a hierarchy in our heads. there are items in almost each episode that has my jaw on the floor with how well the philosophers have articulated and framed the evolution of society. This is a transcript of episode #145 on Henri Bergson. The Frankfurt School - Walter Benjamin pt. So Erich Fromm in his 1956 book The Art of Loving famously wrote this about love: “Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.” But what did he mean by that? Let's talk about some examples...maybe the most basic one is slapstick humor. I'm looking for the transcript for Episode 90 - Nietzsche Pt. Simply put, it's a chronological approach to the biggest ideas that shaped our world explained in a way that you don't need a master's degree to understand. The Frankfurt School - Walter Benjamin pt. He synthesizes the strongest parts of the superiority, relief, AND incongruity theories and then adds on a pragmatic social element of the function of laughter that helps us regulate our cultures and communities. www.philosophizethis.org for additional content. But why if we're accepting the premises from before? If yes, you can add the transcript here. See I've been writing episodes in quarantine...I just haven't been feeling good enough to record them. Thank you for wanting to know more today than you did yesterday. Pretty digestible episodes by philosophize podcast transcript for the episode of god created the tone was Episode_95_-_Nick_Bostrom_and_Simulations.mp3. This theory offers an explanation for why that HAS to be the case. listener who is bored and frustrated by episodes about philosophers who make unverifiable speculations about metaphysics. hide. You can’t answer. The very concept of something being funny, to Bergson, is an extremely humanistic activity. Hello everyone, I'm Stephen West and this is Philosophize This! All this and more on the latest episode of Philosophize This! Beginner friendly if listened to in order! No signup or install needed. Now, the problem with this theory ended up being a lot of different things not the least of which is...that if we're going to start with the premise that what evokes laughter is a feeling of superiority over something...then why do we have such a strong capacity for pity? Henri Bergson's theory is often cited as a strange variation of the incongruity theory, but a better way to think of his theory is as a hybrid theory. 81% Upvoted. Should we consider laughter to be a true marker of happiness...like if we see someone who laughs all www.philosophizethis.org for additional content.. Superiority may be a part of the formula for what makes us laugh, but philosophers were quick to point out that there has to be something else going on here. See that’s how I do this show. They seem very different from each other. Support the show on Patreon! How bout the fact people often laugh at themselves? AppleStitcherSpotifyGoogle PlayLibsynYouTube. /philosophize-this/">Click here for the Philosophize This! So maybe the best place to begin this episode is to talk about laughter as a marker of happiness. report. Now, at first glance this may sound like the incongruity theory is saying that we laugh when our expectations are violated or we are surprised...but it's actually not that simple! When we've exerted mental energy towards caring about a character in a story only to find out it was a joke and that it actually didn't matter, to some supporters of the Relief Theory, we laugh as a psychological tool to release that tension and bring us back to homeostasis. 1. Now, some people might laugh at that. Yeah, he'd stop at NOTHING to get away from them!". Thank you for wanting to know more today than you did yesterday. The LAST of these big theories from history about what makes us laugh is probably the most popular theory in today's day and age...what's known as the Incongruity Theory. Episode #141 ... Isaiah Berlin pt. We might start to feel bad for this person, think of how miserable their life must be. Arguments like this led some philosophers to think of the relief theory in more macro terms. TOP 0.01% Episode #118 ... A Basic Look At Postmodernism May 21, 2018. 2 - Immanence by Philosophize This! You know a common saying is that there is always a VICTIM in comedy...there is always a butt of the joke. If you’d like to support the show by purchasing the official Philosophize This! He actually wonders at one point in his work if since the dawn of the scientific revolution philosophers had taken a different course, and instead of trying to understand the external world they endeavored to understand our internal world...how might the field of psychology look today? But what's funny is that regardless of how much we value laughter, and aim towards it in our daily lives...when philosophers throughout history have tried to take a philosophical approach towards understanding WHY we laugh at things...the reasons we laugh often seem to carry with them some sort of negative connotation. There are certain, patterned ways that we look at the world around us...comedy and tragedy are designed to present a different perspective. www.philosophizethis.org for additional content. I've seen you. I’m sorry, I’ve actually been teaching a triathlon camp the last four days and you know, if you want to see what I’ve been up to, what I’ll do is I’ll put a video of that camp in the Shownotes to this podcast so you can see some of the cool and crazy things we’ve been doing and you can access this podcast Shownotes at episode number 95 at www.bengreenfieldfitness.com. and then wash your hands of the question. Today we discuss the famous paper by Nick Bostrom about the probability that we are living in a simulation. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.”. Laughter occurs when one of those expectations are violated, we feel a momentary sense of discomfort BECAUSE our expectations have been violated, and then that discomfort is resolved in various ways and it produces an affect we call laughter. Thank you for listening. So I want to start today by talking about a very strange ritual that all of you engage in, most of you dont even really think about it, you just do it. Like we talked about with Voltaire...so that no one can take this person or these ideas quite as seriously ever again, AVOIDING the deification...AVOIDING the illusion of infallibility. Episode 95 Transcript: How to Do #MeToo Without Prison [Stinger] Alissa Ackerman: People sitting in a prison cell or being on the public registry, they don't get a … We'll be going into it in depth next episode as well as how laughter relates to the fluidity and elasticity of human behavior, the inspiration he took from the presocratic philosopher Heraclitus we covered on episode one, how this relates to time and we'll start looking deeper into his view of the universe rooted in process philosophy. But we always arrive at the same conclusion. On this episode of the podcast, we learn about Confucius, a man whose ideas impacted China and eastern philosophy for thousands of years after his death. And the internal experience of human beings most joyful experiences you can add the transcript for the this. 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