Existential Laughter

Each of the previous three articles in this series has examined one of the three main traditions of humour theory; those based around incongruity, superiority and the release of energy. We have seen that each of these theoretical traditions sheds some light upon humour and laughter, but also that all fail in their overly ambitious task of offering a fully comprehensive theory. This has not deterred some scholars from wanting to develop such a theory; perhaps by incorporating the best features of each of the main three theoretical traditions into one 'super-theory'. But while it is true that such a synthesis of theories might be superior, as a theory, to each by itself, such a technique would still not give us an adequate general theory. Why? Because we have seen that the inadequacies of the theoretical traditions are not merely those of omission; inadequacies which could be resolved by supplementing any given theory with insights from alternative perspectives. Rather, some of the most important problems are intrinsic to the theories themselves; most notably, the need to stretch terminology, to a sometimes ludicrous degree, which we observed in both the incongruity and superiority traditions. So rather than attempting, in this final article, the construction of such a super-theory, I shall approach our subject from a very different angle. Most philosophers who have written about humour and laughter have done so in passing; their comments usually being digressions from, or a subsection of, some topic perceived as being more important. It therefore seems surprising that two thinkers-Nietzsche and Kierkegaard-who attach to humour and laughter profound significance, have not attracted more attention in this field. 1 This final article, therefore, will shift our attention away from 'theories of humour', and aim to show that both Nietzsche and Kierkegaard have something of interest to say about laughter and humour, but that this something relates, not to their relation to the theoretical traditions examined previously, but to the profound existential significance of laughter and humour.