Divine and Human Laughter in Later Platonism

Plato’s dialogues contain much laughter, sometimes expressing personal or shared pleasure, but often aggressive or malicious (a phenomenon examined in Philebus). Later Platonists, whose texts did not dramatize social interactions, have less to say about laughter and treat it with reserve. Porphyry’s Plotinus never laughs, though he smiles tolerantly at Porphyry’s misunderstanding of his metaphysics (a scene modeled on a passage in Plato’s Parmenides). So the famous remark that Longinus was philologos but not philosophos was probably not aggressive, but a witty riposte to Longinus’ wordplay in the titles of a pair of texts criticizing Plotinus’ philosophy. Later Platonists increasingly favor a serious demeanor, treating laughter with reserve. For Iamblichus, laughter is a merely human trait that obstructs assimilation to the divine. Yet Syrianus and his pupils find in the laughter of Homer’s gods a celebration of divine providence, inspired by Plotinus’ playfully serious reflections on the seriousness of play.

Laughter, Social Norms, and Ethics in Cicero’s Works

Among Latin authors, Cicero is our most important source on the topic of laughter. Cicero views laughter as a defining feature of human sociability, and tackles it with four different uses and contexts in mind: the enhancing of human relationships, the enforcing of the norms shared by the community, the strengthening of one’s public figure, and the maintaining of the ethical agent’s individual coherence. By offering a synthesis of these various views, which Cicero expounds both in a rhetorical (De oratore, 55 BCE) and a philosophical (De officiis, 46 BCE) context, this chapter shows that these approaches stem from a unified understanding of laughter, and that there is no real difference between Cicero’s rhetorical and ethical approach to the topic. The proper and improper uses of laughter, in Cicero’s views, illustrate perfectly what’s at stake in the relationship between the moral agent and the community he belongs to.

Self-Ridicule

Socrates seeks wisdom through self-ridicule, which is a product of self-questioning. The questions he asks others are questions that he asks of himself, questions that we should be asking of ourselves. They are mischievous questions in that they bring to light comfortable presuppositions that will not stand up to investigation; taking them seriously helps us reach an understanding of our ignorance, an understanding that is the basis of human wisdom. What Socrates calls his daimonion, an uncanny ability to avoid wrongdoing, is a product of his self-questioning. Because he has become clear about his ethical commitments, he is able to honor them consistently. Uncanny this may be, but it is not beyond human reach.

Aristotle on Wittiness

This chapter offers a complete account of Aristotle’s underexplored treatment of the virtue of wittiness (eutrapelia) in Nicomachean Ethics 4.8. It addresses the following questions: (1) What, according to Aristotle, is this virtue and what is its structure? (2) How do Aristotle’s moral psychological views inform Aristotle’s account, and how might Aristotle’s discussions of other, more familiar virtues, enable us to understand wittiness better? In particular, what passions does the virtue of wittiness concern, and how might the virtue (and its attendant vices) be related to the virtue of temperance (and its attendant vices)? (3) How does wittiness, as an ethical virtue, benefit its possessor? (4) How can Aristotle resolve some key tensions that his introducing a virtue of wittiness apparently generates for his ethics? In addition to exploring these questions, this chapter challenges some commonly accepted accounts of Aristotle’s views on the nature of the laughable.

The Laughing Philosopher and the Physician

Ancient doctors knew that laughter, hysterical or otherwise, sometimes presented as a symptom of mental disturbances of various kinds (and indeed of rare physical conditions); equally, they realized that there was a role to be played by laughter in treating mental disorders such as depression. This chapter traces this history, with specific focus on certain texts, in particular the pseudo-Hippocratic correspondence concerning the “madness” of Democritus, in which the concerned citizens of Abdera, Democritus’ hometown, ask the great doctor to advise them concerning the philosopher’s apparently pathological, continuous laughter. This premise frames the first topic: when is laughter pathological, and hence a genuine diagnostic tool? This question leads into the chapter’s second concern, namely, what use can laughter be put to in the treatment of disorders such as depression and melancholy? The chapter also briefly examines the question of the relationship between the mental and the physiological presupposed by such therapeutic practices.

Diogenes vs. Demonax

Lucian of Samosata is an invaluable source for the activities of the philosophical schools in the 2nd century CE and their attitudes to laughter. But he can also be understood as a philosopher in his own right, especially for his views on the value of laughter in philosophy and on the potential of laughter as philosophy. This chapter analyzes these views in order to show that Lucian’s writings form a key stage in the history of laughter’s place in philosophical thought. Two prominent forms of philosophical laughter in Lucian are analyzed side by side: the improvisational, inclusive laughter of Demonax, and the exhibitionist, exclusive laughter of the Cynics, (Lucian’s) Diogenes in particular. This chapter argues that Demonax’s laughter ultimately comes closer to Lucian’s own mode of philosophical laughter than Diogenes’ laughter.

The Mouse, the Moneybox, and the Six-Footed Scurrying Solecism

This chapter argues that to properly understand Seneca’s project in the Epistulae morales, one needs to recognize and appreciate his sharp and often satirical wit. Any sensitive reader can observe that the work employs many standard humorous devices to lighten the tone and to hold the reader’s attention. Examples can be given of punning, incongruity, self-caricature, and more elaborate vignettes that recall the verse satires of Horace. But there are also instances in which Seneca’s humor is directed more specifically at certain modes of philosophical speech and writing: the redeployment of Epicurean sententiae in Letters 1-29; the cavillatio or riddle-syllogism of Letters 45, 48, and 49; and the riff on Stoic metaphysics in Letter 113. In these cases, one can best refer to the well-attested function of Roman invective humor as a means of policing boundaries. By them, Seneca communicates certain rules of generic decorum while also alerting readers to his own deliberate transgressions.

Laughter and the Moral Guide

In the perspective of the moralist, laughter is both an important diagnostic tool (it matters with whom and at whom one laughs), and a potentially dangerous propensity requiring careful monitoring and control. Though differing in their modes of engagement with their target audiences, Dio Chrysostom and Plutarch share a concern with well- and ill-directed laughter at both the level of the individual and that of whole communities: Dio above all (though by no means only) in his Euboean and Alexandrian Orations (Orr. 7 and 32); Plutarch both in his texts on ethical self-improvement in the Moralia and, most colorfully, in his Life of Antony (which shares with Dio’s Or. 30 a particular anxiety about Alexandria as a city of morally dubious laughter). Close reading of these texts has thus much to tell us about the fine texture of moral philosophical engagement with laughter in the Roman Imperial period.

Plato on Laughter and Moral Harm

Despite the prevalence of laughter in the dialogues, Plato’s explicit theorizing about laughter is mainly critical. This chapter examines exactly Plato’s views on the moral harmfulness of laughter, as expressed in his three distinct analyses: in Republic 3, Socrates argues that powerful laughter provokes a powerful change in character; in Republic 10, Socrates charges that comedy tempts even decent people to laugh at inappropriate jokes, thus strengthening the lower part of one’s soul; and in the Philebus, Socrates gives a definition of “the ridiculous” in terms of self-ignorance, and he provides an analysis of “derisive laughter,” on which it indulges an unjust emotion, phthonos (“envy” or “malice”). The chapter argues that these criticisms are mutually supporting and aimed at specific kinds of laughter, and then, turning to the Laws, provides an analysis of ethically appropriate laughter and lays out the educational benefits of comedy.

Humor as Philosophical Subversion

Positive philosophical projects and humor do not generally go together. When humor is used, it is often to draw attention to where one might go wrong: someone or something is made fun of. This point is first illustrated with cases in Aristotle. But if this is a major function of humor in philosophy, it offers special opportunities to those whose entire approach to philosophy is critical rather than constructive—those who are suspicious of the whole project of philosophy. This chapter examines a number of instances of this subversive form of humor in philosophy. For the reason just stated, it concentrates on the ancient Greek skeptics, both Academic and Pyrrhonian, with a particular focus on Sextus Empiricus, the only Greek skeptic of whom we have complete works. But Stoics and Epicureans (and, in passing, Plato) also receive some attention, and there are occasional comparisons with examples in more recent philosophy (Nietzsche and Gettier).