Opslag

Viser opslag fra februar, 2013

Humor and Docs 1

Billede
You may remember Umberto Eco’s ”The Name of The Rose”, and you may remember that the key plot was based on the notion that a monk, Jorge of Burgos, was trying to keep the contents of Aristotle's second Poetic on comedy a secret. Of course, in real life that second book is considered lost (while the first one has survived and is about tragedy), b ut nevertheless does the story suggest that humor and laughter was regarded an enemy of the men in power and just plain un-wanted. In his book, “Comic Relief – A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humor”, John Morreall gives an extensive insight on the different aspects of humor. And he does mention Aristotle as one of the few thinkers in Western civilization who actually considers humor a virtue (Thomas Aquinas was another whilst Sartre was not). But maybe I am wrong (and maybe Aristotle and Eco was wrong - sans comparison ) and maybe humor is bad!  As Morreall writes: “Seriousness is the default mode for us and other animals. The non-serio