Humour: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) Paperback – March 1, 2014

Excellent copy arrived on time.

I liked it. It was easy introduction and a good addition to my philosophy of humor and comedy course I am taking in college.

This short work is part of a series of brief introductions to various philosophical issues, published by Oxford University Press, in which various scholars analyze, in an affordable but deep way, some questions in which they are experts. Noël Carroll has written extensively on the subject of this brief introduction, and he is undoubtedly one of the thinkers of reference on the subject of humour. So this little book is a highly recommended approach to that vast subject. If someone has followed Carroll's work on the topic, (s)he will understand what I mean.
To begin with, Carroll explains and reviews the different theories that attempt to explain the nature of humour (superiority, incongruity, release...), and illustrates each of the theses by means of multiple examples (jokes, TV series...). He focuses especially on the incongruity theory, which is the most widely accepted, and develops his own proposal. The book also analyzes the relationship between humour, emotion and knowledge, in order to see whether we can really hold that comic amusement is an emotional state, and studies the relationship between humour and value, as well as the moral concerns involved in humour. It includes also a brief critical bibliography of each of the issues discussed in it.
I don't thing anyone can get a better introduction to the topic. Carroll knows what he is talking about and is able to introduce the many nuances of the topic in such a way that any reader can easily see and understand the status quaestionis. I find it really useful.

Sixto Castro

This is a very methodical analysis of humor by philosophy professor Noel Carroll, who has been described as a foremost philosopher of our time. He has written over 15 books on such piquant topics as his most famous: "The Philosophy of Horror." Now we have a really fascinating exploration of the morality and cultural value of jokes. Well worth a look.

What a wonderful book. Now I know why I laugh at jokes, and why risky ones are sometimes the funniest. Plus, the book has lots of good jokes.

So what did I want from an introductory book on humour? Four things: (1) to provide me with a summary of theories on humour; (2) to take a peek into some of the philosophical issues surrounding humour; (3) to provide me with some taxonomies on types and techniques of humour; and (4) to make me laugh.

Of these four, the first and the third were the most important. The second was relatively important to me, only because I have an interest in philosophy, and only then in a small dose. And I want to laugh when I read a book like this because it is not a textbook, it is supposed to be a stimulating, yea entertaining, introduction to a new subject, a subject which after all is HUMOUR.

This little book has three chapters: chapter one covers theories of humour, chapter two dips into humour’s relation to emotions and thinking, and chapter three faces up to the ethics of humour. The first is the best and rest slide downhill from there. Why? The author is a philosopher by trade, which means he sees almost everything in this light, and only this light; the closer he gets to his native subject, the more plodding and pedantic his style becomes.

At the start I thought it would be brilliant to have a book like this written by a philosopher. I expected, and found, plenty of definitions and logical connections. For example, the author champions a theory of humour called the incongruity theory, which he explains, defends and adapts in chapter one. He carries this understanding on into the other chapters, which is good. But because there are only three chapters, it feels like there isn’t much new ground covered, only a smallish area in great depth. More chapters covering a wider area would have greatly improved the readability of the book.

Chapter one was easily the best and the one least directly related to philosophy. Carroll describes all the main humour theories – superiority, incongruity, release, play and dispositional – while revisiting and refining the first of these. Chapter two asks whether comic amusement is an emotional state (probably), and whether humour serves any role in correcting our cognitive bugs (not really). I found the first of these discussions silly, and the second interesting, particularly in light of the link that the likes of Edward de Bono and others make between creative thinking and humour.

Chapter three covers “humour and value” or the morality of certain kinds of jokes, both in the telling and in the listening to/enjoying of. Again, Carroll competently covers the various theories involved: comic amoralism, comic ethicism, comic immoralism, and moderate comic moralism. This should have been interesting but it kind of made me want to tear my hair out.

Partly this was due to our political milieu (i.e. PCness) which underlies the discussion but was not explicitly faced, and partly because to me it felt like listening to a discussion on the morality of a recipe. But that’s apparently because I’m a comic amoralist, believing that humour is a form of play that exists beyond good and evil. The only relevant question for me is, If it’s funny, how come? I do find analysing the moral virtue of this or that joke equivalent to dissecting a still fluttering butterfly.

The book utterly lacked material I expected it include, or I would have liked it to include. Such as: classifications of different kinds of humour and jokes, different methods of humour, a little on how humour has been perceived in difficult cultures and throughout history, a little on the relation between humour and politics/power. I’m very interested in the concept of ‘humour styles’ or the interaction between humour and individual personality. Nothing on this either. In an introduction like this, I think I prefer a little info on a range of topics rather than a few topics bored down to the core.

Please accept my apologies for this un-humorous review. This reflects my giggle count when reading the book.