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Acknowledgments
We are indebted to a number of people and institutions for assistance in the creation of this volume. We would first of all like to express our thanks to Lucy Randall, Hannah Doyle, and others at Oxford University Press for their support and encouragement. In order to bring the authors of the various chapters of the volume together to comment on each other’s work in progress and engage with each other’s ideas, the editors organized two workshops: one in the spring of 2016 at the Universite Catholique de Louvain in Belgium and one in the summer of 2016 at the University of Oslo in Norway. Most of the essays in this volume were presented in draft form at these workshops, and we would very much like to thank the authors for participating and making the workshops so successful. The workshop at Oslo was organized by Franco Trivigno, who is grateful for the generous financial support of Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas at the University of Oslo. The Louvain workshop was organized by Pierre Destree, thanks to the generous sponsorship of the FRS/FNRS (Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique de la Communaute Francaise de Belgique) and the Centre Dewulf-Mansion. We want to thank all those who made those workshops possible, especially our colleagues in both places who attended and joined in the conversations. We are especially grateful to the scholars who commented on the papers that were presented in Louvain-la-Neuve, that is, Teun Tieleman (Utrecht), Michiel Meeusen (Leuven), Jan Opsomer (Leuven), Stefano Maso (Venice), and Graziano Ranocchia (Roma); and to those who commented on the papers in Oslo, that is, Panos Dimas (Oslo), Eyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson (Oslo), Hallvard Fossheim (Bergen), Pål Rykkja Gilbert (Oslo), Thomas Kjeller Johansen (Oslo), and Marko Malink (New York University).
Contributor Biographies
Richard Bett is Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. He specializes in ancient Greek philosophy, with a particular focus on ethics and epistemology. He also has interests in modern ethics and epistemology, as well as a significant side interest in Nietzsche. He is the author of Pyrrho, His Antecedents and His Legacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); and of translations of Sextus Empiricus’ Against the Ethicists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), with introduction and commentary, Against the Logicians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), with introduction and notes; Against the Physicists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), with introduction and notes; and Against Those in the Disciplines (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). He is also the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Scepticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). In addition, he has published articles in Phronesis, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy, Apeiron (of which he is an Editorial Board member), and elsewhere. His publications have been especially on ancient Greek skepticism (sometimes including comparisons with modern approaches to skepticism), but also include papers on the Stoics, Socrates, Plato, the Sophists, and Nietzsche.
Pierre Destrée is Associate Research Professor at the FRS (Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique), and he teaches ancient philosophy at the University of Louvain (Louvainla-Neuve). His main research interests are in ancient philosophy (mainly: Presocratics, Plato and Aristotle) and philosophy of art (including theory of humor). He has co-edited over a dozen volumes with Brill, Wiley-Blackwell, Peeters, and Cambridge University Press. He is the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters, mainly on ancient ethics and aesthetics. Recent publications include: (with Penelope Murray) The Blackwell Companion to Ancient Aesthetics (West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015); (with Zina Giannopoulou) Plato: Symposium—A Critical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017); and (with Radcliffe Edmonds) Plato and the Power of Images (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2017).
Margaret Graver is Aaron Lawrence Professor of Classics at Dartmouth College. She is the author of Cicero on the Emotions: Tusculan Disputations 3 and 4 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002) and of Stoicism and Emotion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007) and of numerous articles and chapters on Hellenistic and Roman philosophy. She has recently published, together with A. A. Long, a complete translation of Seneca’s Epistulae Morales with commentary (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015).
Contributor Biographies
Charles Guérin is Professor of Latin Literature at Sorbonne Université (EDITTA, EA 1491, F-75005 Paris, France). He is the author of Persona: L’élaboration d’une notion rhétorique au Ier siècle av. J.-C. Vol. I: Antécédents grecs et première rhétorique latine; Volume II: Théorisation cicéronienne de la persona oratoire (Paris: Vrin, 2009 and 2011); and La voix de la vérité: Le témoignage et ses enjeux rhétoriques dans les tribunaux romains (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2015). He is also the editor of several volumes, including (with S. Aubert) Le Brutus de Cicéron: Rhétorique, politique et histoire culturelle (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2014).
R. J. Hankinson is Professor of Philosophy and Classics at the University of Texas at Austin. He has also held posts at McGill University and King’s College, Cambridge. He has published on many aspects of Greek philosophy and science, in particular medicine. His publications include Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), and three volumes of translation with notes of Simplicius’s commentary on De Caelo. He is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Galen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
Malcolm Heath is Professor of Greek Language and Literature in the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies at the University of Leeds. He has written extensively on Greek literature, rhetorical theory, and philosophical poetics. Recent publications include “Platonists and the Teaching of Rhetoric in Late Antiquity,” in P. Vassilopoulou and S. R. L. Clark (eds.), Late Antique Epistemology: Other Ways to Truth (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 143–59; “The Ancient Sublime,” in T. M. Costelloe (ed.), The Sublime: From Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 11–23; Ancient Philosophical Poetics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); and “Aristotle and the Value of Tragedy,” British Journal of Aesthetics 54 (2014): 111–23.
Inger N. I. Kuin is a Senior Lecturer in Classics at Dartmouth College. Her research concerns Greek imperial literature, ancient philosophy, and the history of the Roman East. Her recent publications include “Competition and Innovation in Aristotle, Politics 2,” in C. Pieper and C. Damon (eds.), Eris vs. Aemulatio: Competition in Classical Antiquity (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2019), 120–40; “Sulla and the Invention of Roman Athens,” Mnemosyne 71.4 (2018): 616–39; and “Rewriting Family History: Strabo and the Mithridatic Wars,” Phoenix 71.1–2 (2017): 102–18. She is currently finishing up a monograph on the gods in the works of Lucian of Samosata.
Mary Margaret McCabe is Professor of Ancient Philosophy Emerita at King’s College London. She works on ancient philosophy, on ethics, and on the philosophy of medicine. She has published three monographs on Plato (Plato on Punishment [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981]; Plato’s Individuals [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994]; and Plato and His Predecessors: The Dramatisation of Reason [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000]), as well as numerous articles, on the Presocratics, on Plato, on Aristotle, and on the Stoics, and several co-edited volumes. Her work also includes a volume of her collected essays, Platonic Conversations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). In addition, she gave the Sather lectures at the
University of California, Berkeley, in 2016–17. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and was President of the British Philosophical Association (2008–12) and President of the Mind Association (2016–17).
Geert Roskam, PhD (2001) in Classics, is Associate Professor at the Catholic University of Leuven. His research interests include Hellenistic philosophy (especially Epicureanism) and later Platonism. He has written numerous articles and has edited several books. He has also written monographs on Stoicism (On the Path to Virtue: The Stoic Doctrine of Moral Progress and Its Reception in (Middle-)Platonism [Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 2005]), Epicureanism (“Live Unnoticed”: On the Vicissitudes of an Epicurean Doctrine [Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007]), and Plutarch (A Commentary on Plutarch’s “De latenter vivendo” [Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 2007] and Plutarch’s “Maxime cum principibus philosopho esse disserendum”: An Interpretation with Commentary [Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 2009]).
Michael Trapp (DPhil Oxford 1986) has been Professor of Greek Literature and Thought at King’s College London since 2004. His principal book-length publications are a critical edition (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1994) and an annotated translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) of the Dialexeis of Maximus of Tyre; Greek and Latin Letters: An Anthology (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Socrates from Antiquity to the Enlightenment and Socrates in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (as editor, two volumes, Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007); and Philosophy in the Roman Empire: Ethics, Politics and Society (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007). He is currently translating and annotating the works of Aelius Aristides for the Loeb Classical Library. He has contributed chapters on both Dio Chrysostom and Plutarch to edited volumes, most recently one on Dio for the volume The Lash of Ambition (Louvain: Peeters, 2012), and one on Plutarch for A Companion to Plutarch (West Sussex: Blackwell, 2014).
Franco V. Trivigno is Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas at the University of Oslo. He is the co-editor (with Nancy Snow) of The Philosophy and Psychology of Character and Happiness (New York: Routledge, 2014), and his recent articles include: “The Goodness of Death in Oedipus at Colonus,” in Woodruff (ed.), The Oedipus Plays of Sophocles: Philosophical Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 209–37; “Plato,” in N. Snow (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Virtue (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 85–103; “A Doctor’s Folly: Diagnosing the Speech of Eryximachus,” in P. Destrée and Z. Giannopoulou (eds.), Plato’s Symposium: A Critical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 48–69; “The Moral and Literary Character of Hippias in the Hippias Major,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 50 (2016): 31–65; and “Childish Nonsense? The Value of Interpretation in Plato’s Protagoras,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 51 (2013): 509–43.
Matthew D. Walker is Associate Professor of Humanities (Philosophy) at Yale-NUS College. His main areas of research are ancient Greek philosophy (especially Aristotle) and comparative ethics. Some of his recent work includes “How Narrow is Aristotle’s
Contemplative Ideal?,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2017): 558–83; “Aristotle on the Utility and Choiceworthiness of Friends,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie (2014): 151–82; “Non-Impositional Rule in Confucius and Aristotle,” in A. McLeod (ed.), The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Early Chinese Ethics and Political Philosophy (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 187–204; and Aristotle on the Uses of Contemplation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
Paul B. Woodruff is Darrell K. Royal Professor of Ethics and American Policy at the University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches philosophy and classics. He has written extensively on Plato, especially on the dialogues considered early. Recent publications include Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue (2001, 2nd ed. 2014); First Democracy: The Challenge of an Ancient Idea (2005); The Necessity of Theater: The Art of Watching and Being Watched (2008); and The Ajax Dilemma: Justice, Fairness and Rewards (2011, which develops a theory of justice inspired by Plato), all published by Oxford University Press (New York).
Introduction
Pierre Destrée and Franco V. Trivigno
When a joke is met with a blank, uncomprehending stare, one often tries to explain the joke, but this response never works. A joke explained is hardly ever funny. Theorizing about humor and comedy is also like this—understanding the inner workings of comedy or the psychological profile of laughter will not make one laugh. This is not necessarily a problem or a limitation in our ability to understand humor, as some people seem to think, unless one also thinks that the explanation of why one laughs should also cause one to laugh. But why should one think that? No one, we assume, makes it an adequacy condition of the explanation of weeping that it make one weep; or, to take an even more absurd example, makes it an adequacy condition of the explanation of belching that it make one belch. The chapters in this book are as a result not themselves funny, but they will treat the reader to a number of funny passages from ancient philosophy.
To judge from the relative paucity of secondary literature on laughter, humor, and comedy in ancient philosophy, one might have gotten the impression that the ancients were simply not interested in this theme or only wrote in a dry and stuffy way. This impression is simply mistaken on at least three counts. First, the ancients theorized about laughter and its causes, they moralized about the appropriate uses of humor and what it is appropriate to laugh at, and they wrote treatises on comedic composition. Second, they were often merciless in mocking their opponents’ positions, hoping to get their audience to laugh at and thus reject the laughable opponent’s side of the debate. Third, they borrowed comedic devices and techniques from comic poetry and drama often, though not always, to ridicule their philosophical opponents. In short, we mistakenly expect that ancient philosophers are more like contemporary ones, who are mostly dry and stuffy in their style and have shown relatively little theoretical interest in laughter and comedy. The lack of attention to ancient theorizing thus has much more to do with our contemporary expectations and scholarly prejudices than with any lack of source material. There is, for example, a great deal of humor and comedy in Plato, but scholars who have noticed that a stretch of text is comedic have more often than not neglected to provide an analysis of it, presumably on the grounds that once one has identified the text as comedic, one has said all that needs to be
said about it. The explanation for this attitude can be found, we think, in a subtle but problematic slide between what is comedic, what is unserious or playful, and what is trivial. If something is comedic, one might be tempted to think along these lines, then it does not have a serious philosophical purpose and is thus not worthy of serious scholarly attention. This line of thinking is misguided, and we hope to demonstrate with this volume how fruitful and philosophically informative scholarly attention to these passages can be. One of our main motivations for this volume is to give the themes of laughter, humor, and comedy their due, as it were. While volumes on tragedy in ancient philosophy abound, there has unfortunately not been a parallel proliferation for volumes on comedy. Laughter and humor are so basic to human existence—so present in our everyday lives—that we believe that they deserve more philosophical attention than they get.
The volume is organized around three themes or sets of questions. The first set concerns the psychology of laughter. What is going on in our minds when we laugh? What background conditions must be in place for laughter to occur? At what exactly are we laughing when we laugh? Is laughter necessarily hostile or derisive? Aristotle famously wrote that, amongst the animals, only humans laugh (Part. An. 3.10.673a1–b3). But what about the gods? Do they laugh? If so, what is the nature of their laughter? The second set of questions concerns the ethical and social norms governing laughter and humor. When is it appropriate or inappropriate to laugh? Can laughter harm others? Does laughter have a positive social function? What kinds of jokes are appropriate to make? Is there a virtue, or excellence, connected to laugher and humor? The third set of questions concerns the philosophical uses of humor and comedic technique. How do philosophers typically use humor in their writings? Does the humor play primarily a negative role in criticizing other rivals, or can it play a positive educational role as well? If it can, how does philosophical humor communicate its philosophical content? Our aim with this volume is not to settle these fascinating questions but more modestly to start a conversation about them, and we hope our volume will be a reference point for discussions of laughter, humor, and comedy in ancient philosophy, as well as being an engine for future research about them.
1. The Psychology of Laughter
The four chapters in this section of the book treat a number of overlapping themes and topics. Chapter 1, Franco V. Trivigno’s “Plato on Laughter and Moral Harm,” provides an account of Plato’s views on the moral psychology of laughter and the different ways in which laughter may be morally harmful to the laughing agent. Pierre Destrée’s “Aristotle on Why We Laugh at Jokes” in Chapter 2 provides a general picture of what Aristotle thinks causes us to laugh, making
unexpectedness the central feature. In Chapter 3, “The Laughing Philosopher and the Physician: Laughter, Diagnosis, and Therapy in Greek Medicine,” R. J. Hankinson provides a reading of a Hippocratic epistolary novel, wherein Democritus’ incessant laughing is diagnosed not as a symptom of madness or sickness but rather as a sign of wisdom. In Chapter 4, Malcolm Heath traces the subtly shifting attitudes toward human and divine laughter in the later Platonist tradition in “Divine and Human Laughter in Later Platonism,” arguing that while attitudes toward human laughter hardened, divine laughter was given a new, more positive interpretation.
A common assumption undergirding much of the ancient analysis of laughter is that laughing is very often, though not always, laughing at someone and expresses a kind of aggressiveness aimed at the one laughed at. A starting point for much of the debate is the famous analysis of laughter as an expression of phthonos, envy or malice, found in Plato’s Philebus (48a–50b). Since this emotion is directed at our friends, it is unjust and laughing in this way morally harms us. This passage is central to Trivigno’s account of the moral harms of laughter and an important starting point for Heath’s account of the Platonist tradition; both agree that the account cannot be intended as Plato’s final word on laughter as such, but is rather aimed at a particular kind of laughter caused by comic theater. Heath sees the later tradition, particularly Alcinous and Iamblichus, as apparently taking overly strong stances against laughter, even as they attempt to hold to Plato’s position. Destrée argues that Aristotle rejected Plato’s analysis in terms of phthonos, arguing that a different kind of aggressiveness—educated hubris (Rhetoric 1389a9–b11)— is what explains laughter’s aggressive side. Proclus makes divine laughter, as Heath shows, an “aphthonos, or generous, activity” of the gods, freeing their laughter from the negative associations with an unjust emotion.
The assumed aggressiveness of laughter is often accompanied by an assumption about the felt superiority of the one laughing, and in the case of comedy, the inferiority of the figures that it stages to the spectators. As Trivigno and Destrée show, both Plato and Aristotle made the inferiority of comedic figures central to their respective accounts of the experience of comedy (Poetics 5.449a32–33; cf. Laws 7.814e4–5, 816d5–6). Plato’s definition of the laughable, to geloion, as weak self-ignorance in the Philebus can be seen as a precursor to Aristotle’s understanding of it the laughable as “a mistake or deformity not productive of pain or harm to others” (Poetics 5.1449a34–35). Those laughed at are conceived of as both powerless in general and inferior in relation to the ones laughing. Hankinson’s account of the encounter between Hippocrates and Democritus, the laughing philosopher, most clearly brings out the implications of superiority. On his reconstruction, there is a pervasive worry about Democritus that he is simply mad and suffering from a pathological condition, like excessive bile, and indeed this is why, in the novel, the Abderans call in a doctor. But Hippocrates concludes
that the philosopher was “extremely wise in everything” (Letter 17.1.72.26–27) and that his laughter is caused by a deep insight into the folly of all human pursuits, such that his perspective is that of the divine.
As Hankinson notes, attributing this kind of laughter of superiority to the gods seems troubling, and Plato at any rate would have none of it. In Republic 3, he criticizes the scene in Homer in which the gods are overcome by unquenchable laughter at the sight of Hephaestus serving drinks (Iliad 1.599–600). On Trivigno’s account, the core problem is that the gods are put in a passive position, and this is both impossible because of the gods’ nature and irreconcilable with their role as moral exemplars of perfect self-possession. Heath also traces the implications of this passage for later Platonist reflections on divine laughter: while Iamblichus would deny the possibility that gods laugh, Proclus turns the laughter in Homer into an important symbol of the gods’ joy in their own creative activity and good will toward the cosmos. This is divine superiority to be sure, but one that stands in stark contrast to the divine perspective taken up by Democritus. Living beings may be the “playthings” of the gods, as Plotinus and Plato assert (Enneads 3.2.32–39; cf. Laws 644d), without thereby being worthy of derisive laughter.
But what of more benign forms of laughter? Drawing on a passage from the Rhetoric, Destrée argues that unexpectedness is important for Aristotle’s understanding how laughter functions, particularly in puns and wordplay. He places Aristotle in opposition to Plato on phthonos and provides an account of a more benign sort of laughter, one that does not depend necessarily on superiority or aggressiveness, but rather on the raising and failing to meet of certain expectations. On Heath’s account, some of Plato’s portrayals of laughter may be understood as violations of expectations, but Plato’s theorizing about laughter shows no sign of this. As both Trivigno and Heath notice, Plato’s more playful form of laughter in the Laws still employs ridicule, but in a playful and nonaggressive spirit. Heath also finds a more benign and less aggressive interpretation of Plotinus’ put-down of Longinus as “a philologist, but not a philosopher,” as reported by Porphyry (Plot. 14.18–20). By interpreting the phrase as a pun, or play on words, in response to Longinus’ own wordplay in a work highly critical of Plotinus’ understanding of forms, Heath shows how the anecdote can be squared with Porphyry’s overall presentation of Plotinus as gentle and welcoming of criticism.
2. The Ethical and Social Significance of Laugher and Humor
In the following three chapters, the authors take up an ethical and social perspective on the appropriateness of laughter and humor. In Chapter 5, “Aristotle
on Wittiness,” Matthew D. Walker offers a detailed reading of the chapter Aristotle devotes to wittiness (eutrapelia) in the Nicomachean Ethics, arguing that it should be considered a virtue dealing with the irrational—epithumetic— part of the soul. In Chapter 6, “Laughter, Social Norms, and Ethics in Cicero’s Works,” Charles Guérin focuses on the notion of decorum as a bridge between the pragmatic and the ethical understanding of laughter. In Chapter 7, “Laughter and the Moral Guide: Dio Chrysostom and Plutarch,” Michael Trapp analyses how these philosophers share a concern with good and bad laughter at both the individual and communal level, and how they propose ethical selfimprovement on that matter.
Laughter poses some serious ethical and social challenges, especially when one’s laughter is directed at a friend or fellow citizen and when there is an audience who shares (or not) in that laughter. If the primary cases of laughter are aggressive, as Plato seems to think, then the social standing of the target of laughter may be damaged, the relationship between the target and the joker may be harmed, and the joker himself may be perceived by the audience as a buffoon. More broadly, laughing at fellow citizens might ultimately destroy the bonds of friendship that hold the polis together. How can one navigate this difficult terrain, and what kind of laughter would be appropriate for a good and socially cohesive city?
Two types of answers have been given to this challenge: The first is to insist that some kinds of humor and laughter are “nonaggressive” and indeed are aimed at providing amusements and entertainment in social settings that strengthen bonds of friendship. And in that case, aggressiveness should not be thought to be usually, or necessarily, present; mocking laughter is only one type of laughter, not the typical laughter that goes with wittiness. On the contrary, as Walker argues, the virtue of wittiness consists in joking and taking jokes that aim at amusement and entertainment, not at criticizing people or undermining their social status. For Aristotle, joking is central to amusement, which is an important part of human life, and a boorish person who never enjoys a joke is a vicious figure, who seems to want to deny that part of our humanity. Some of these jokes will be at a friend’s expense, for example, in the context of a symposium, but these cases of teasing may be understood as instances of “educated hubris,” that is, a kind of mock or false hostility. Of course, such teasing can go wrong or be taken in the wrong way, and this is why we need a virtue to avoid our laughter becoming a source of enmity, both in the sphere of private friendship, and in the broader social or political framework. For Cicero, especially in his De officiis and his Letters, as Guérin shows, joking is also part and parcel of our humanity, if in a different way. Since our humanity very much depends on our ability both to avoid violence and to show kindness through our deeds and words, nonaggressive humor is plausibly the best tool to make sure our verbal exchanges with our fellows go
in a properly human way. A pleasant, charming, humorous art of conversation is therefore an essential ethical requirement.
A second response is to show that even aggressive laughter can be appropriate and a source of social cohesion by identifying enemies and established a shared conception of the social unit’s values. One can think of this as an educational kind of laughter, since it teaches the citizens about what they stand for and what kind of behavior they will not tolerate. This type of humor can be used in symposium settings among friends, in line with the norms of Aristotelian wittiness, but there are other, more public circumstances in which aggressive laughter can be used in a proper way. In the Roman public sphere, such aggressive laughter was quite commonly used to call an opponent’s behavior or morality into question. As Guérin argues, this is a central feature in Cicero’s conception of rhetoric, which he develops in his De oratore. Adapting Aristotle’s definition of the ridiculous in Poetics 5, which consists in the physical deformities or foolish misdeeds of an “inferior” character, into his own rhetorical framework, Cicero advocates using deformity, mistakes, and social degradation as sources for laughter in order to defeat one’s opponent in a political assembly or a courtroom. For Cicero, this use in turn constitutes an important tool that helps bind the community together, reinforcing shared norms and values.
These community- and friendship-building cases of laughter also have a darker side, as Trapp demonstrates in his analyses of Dio Chrysostom’s discourse to the Alexandrians and Plutarch’s Life of Antony. According to Trapp, the aim of Dio Chrysostom’s discourse is to try to make Alexandrians see how deeply ridiculous they are, because they are fond of each and every joke and become subject to an “intense and intemperate laughter” (Alex. orat. 29). They have, as a community, laughed too much, as it were, and their bonds have been established on problematic and ultimately harmful premises. Instead, Dio recommends that they, in the typical Stoic fashion, attempt to follow the truly wise person and experience joy or rejoicing (chara), as opposed to the foolish laughter that make them unable to follow and exercise their reason. Similarly, in his Life of Antony, Plutarch aims at showing that it is the very propensity to jesting and being jested with that made Antony vulnerability to flatterers, especially to Cleopatra, and this susceptibility is the ultimate cause of his undoing. Here, Plutarch offers a very subtle moralizing exercise, as his readers are meant to feel, reflect on, and ultimately be warned against what Trapp calls “the seductive pull of shared laughter.” Here, shared laughter does not function as a way of reinforcing good moral values, but of fostering and sustaining immoderate tendencies that ultimately cause moral harm.
Worries about the consequences of laughter for the jester himself, as we have seen it in Dio and Plutarch, go as far back as Plato, who, in Republic 10, warns against buffoonery. This is also a central concern in Aristotle’s exposition of the
virtue of wittiness, since buffoonery is one of the excesses or vices. Defending what he calls a “epithumetic” view on wittiness, Walker contends that if pleasure and amusement is crucial to (nonaggressive) laughter, the excess of laughter, both in joking and in hearing jokes, amounts to a kind of “lack of self-control” (akrasia), or even “overindulgence” (akolasia), which is the typical flaw of epithumia, or irrational desire. In a similar vein, for Cicero, as Guérin argues, the jester should be seen as the incarnation of good taste and moderation, and this should be the case both in the context of letters and exchanges with friends, and in public discourses; jesters who would not be able to exert restraint and joke at any time and at all costs would end up buffoons, become ridiculous themselves, and ruin their standing. Here too, moderation in joking, whether it is aggressive or not, is a virtue, at least in the social sense that it allows one to do one’s “duty” and fulfill one’s proper “function” (officium) as a human being and a citizen. For Cicero, this obligation amounts to an implementation of decorum, or appropriateness, that partly constitutes the good life.
3. The Use of Humor and Comedy in Philosophical Discourse
The previous section analyzed some ways of dealing with the potential danger of laughter in the ethical and social realms as well as with the moral and social benefits one can get from humor and laughter. This section deals with the usages of humor that nearly all ancient philosophers show in their writings from Plato up to Lucian and Sextus Empiricus, and what role these passages play in communicating with their readers. The two first chapters in this section explore some of the multifaceted humorous devices that we find in Plato’s work. Focusing on the figure of Socrates in “Self-Ridicule: Socratic Wisdom,” Paul B. Woodruff argues that ridicule, especially self-ridicule, helps one to remain close to truly human wisdom, that is, the full-fledged recognition of one’s ignorance. In “Ridicule and Protreptic: Plato, His Reader, and the Role of Comedy in Inquiry,” Mary Margaret McCabe provides an analysis of the Philebus’ account of the laughter to show how Plato, particularly in the dramatic frames, causes in his readers the mixed pleasure of laughter in order to create deep puzzlement and provoke them toward philosophical reflection. If Aristotle’s use of humor as a philosophical device is quite limited, we find that Hellenistic and Roman philosophies made the widespread use of its various forms. In “Humor as Philosophical Subversion: Especially in the Skeptics,” Richard Bett presents humor as it was used in a critical spirit, with a focus on how the ancient Skeptics exploited humorous devices. In “Philosophy is Great Fun! Laughter in Epicureanism,” Geert Roskam examines how a similar polemical
and critical laughter at empty ideals is connected with truth and true freedom in Epicureanism. On the Stoic side, in “The Mouse, the Moneybox, and the SixFooted Scurrying Solecism: Satire and Riddles in Seneca’s Philosophy,” Margaret Graver rehabilitates Seneca’s sense of humor, and examines how both other- and self-directed humor is used as a way of marking the boundaries of philosophy in his Letters. Finally, in “Diogenes vs. Demonax: Laughter as Philosophy in Lucian,” Inger N. I. Kuin examines how Lucian describes the figures of Diogenes and Demonax, and contends that through the latter, Lucian offers an implicit defense of laughter as a tool for expanding the philosophical mind.
Since aggressive laughter is generally considered to be the central case of laughter, it is no surprise then that the most widespread usage of humor is derisive, sometimes even strongly abrasive, aimed polemically either at philosophical opponents and their views or against common opinion. Such philosophically derisive laughter was already present before Plato: consider, for example, Xenophanes’ criticism of divine anthropomorphism. But it is first in Plato’s depiction of Socrates that we get a methodology whereby such laughter, or the potential exposure to it, becomes a crucial part of philosophic critique. The Socratic elenchus, as Woodruff reminds us, aims at shaming and ridiculing the interlocutor, exposing his self-ignorance and the defects of his mind. While Socrates usually targets non-philosophers, at least in the dialogues, philosophers using humor to shame and ridicule one another was very common.
Several comedic devices were commonly used. The most direct, and harshest, one was defamatory language and direct abuse: as Bett and Roskam highlight, Timon and Epicurus were among the toughest insulters of their rivals. One strategy, borrowed directly from Old Comedy, was to come up with inventive nicknames. Not even Socrates escapes the Epicurean Zeno’s vindictiveness, as the latter dubbed him “the Attic clown.” Since competition between philosophical schools was fierce, especially during Hellenistic and Roman periods, insulting and laughing at your philosophical opponents was a forceful tool to unite one’s followers or disciples against other schools of philosophy, and therefore to reinforce their sense of belonging to their philosophical community. But more interestingly, as Roskam proposes, this ridicule must have also had the effect of demystifying the aura that surrounds the big names in the philosophical tradition and thus provoking independent thinking. One widespread usage of derisive laughter consisted in making fun of the arguments of one’s opponents by vividly illustrating their absurd consequences, or by analogizing the argument to some absurd or illogical parallel. Epicurus, Seneca, and Sextus Empiricus were especially fond of, and good at, such practices. As Roskam, Graver, and Bett relate in detail, the strategy of exposing argumentation as ridiculous and absurd can have a devastating effect. The ridiculousness of such arguments gets attributed to their defenders and, by implication, to the defenders’ philosophical
schools, and as a consequence laughing readers are strongly encouraged to reject the lot and rather to endorse the author’s non-ridiculous philosophical proposals and arguments. A third device is typical of Plato’s dialogues: we find humorous scenes, especially at the beginning of the dialogue, such as the famous episode of the bench at the beginning of the Charmides, wherein the older men shove one another to make room for the beautiful young Charmides, with the result that the two on the end are knocked clean off. As McCabe argues, in those episodes Plato’s readers are meant to take part in the audience’s laughing at the victim(s); but given Plato’s conception of laughter as a mixture of pleasure and pain, these readers must experience a rather uneasy, uncomfortable laughter, which is intended to provoke a high sense of puzzlement, and arouse in them critical, philosophical reflection.
In these forms, laugher is at someone else’s expense. But we find also quite a few cases in which laugher is directed toward oneself. One paradigmatic case, Woodruff argues, is that of Socrates who, in the Hippias Major, has the anonymous contradictor, that is, his own conscience or voice, who mocks him and subjects him to ridicule. Here, Socrates seems to embody philosophical dialogue within his own mind, constantly employing his own tactics of refutation and ridicule on himself.
As Graver demonstrates, Seneca’s letters are tinged with self-mockery and contain numerous instances of self-directed humor. Unlike Socrates’ selfridicule, Seneca’s does not seem to be part of a strategy of ethical and epistemic improvement. Rather, arguably more in line with Cicero, it is part of a device for maintaining the generic decorum of the Epistulae morales, by holding himself to the same standards as the others. A rather different self-directed mode of humor is to be found in Diogenes. As Kuin examines through the portrait of Diogenes that Lucian offers, Cynics exposed their bodies engaged in indecent behavior in order to provoke laughter and shame against themselves, but for the paradoxical aim of showing their imperviousness to mockery and their absolute freedom from all conventional morality, though Lucian himself seems to reject this as a form of hypocritical exhibitionism.
Besides these cases of ridicule and derisive laughter, more benign forms of humor were also sometimes used. As Bett reminds us, puns and other forms of wordplays are regularly to be found in Aristotle’s work, in which the main aim seems to focus the mind of the reader and help her to follow the philosophical inquiry, not to laugh at anything or anyone. Also, Roman philosophers, both Stoics such as Seneca and Epicureans such as Lucretius, were keen on trying to maintain laughter and humor within the boundaries of decorum, that is, the appropriate way of a decent and affable citizen practicing moderate and non-hostile laughter. It is in this context that the figure of Demonax is relevant. He may have been the ideal of Lucian, as Kuin argues, and he is presented as a very easy-going,
amicable, and witty philosopher. He is thus rather unusual as a paradigmatic figure of philosophical humor, as opposed to the tougher and more derisive humor of figures like Diogenes, Timon, and Epicurus. Demonax does criticize philosophers by using humor, but he does so in a very gentle way, using sophisticated forms of incongruity rather than hostile or dismissive forms of ridicule.
4. Conclusion
Our aim in this volume is not to give an exhaustive account of ancient philosophy on the theories of laughter and comedy, the ethical and social analyses of humor, and laughter or the philosophical uses of humor and comedy. We do hope that we may redeem these topics as philosophically fruitful avenues into ancient thinking more generally and that our volume contributes to a growing interest in ancient philosophical engagements with laughter, humor, and comedy. In one of his most fascinating sentences, Epicurus says that we must “laugh and philosophize at the same time” (SV 41). If readers of this volume do laugh, we hope it is not because of some egregious error or deformity in one of its chapters, but because they are amused by the wittiness of ancient philosophers, or, even better, because through them one is gaining understanding and getting just a little bit closer to Democritus and the standpoint of wisdom.
1
Plato on Laughter and Moral Harm
Franco V. Trivigno
Plato presents his characters as laughing on numerous occasions.1 A good deal of this laughter is mocking or derisive—for example, Thrasymachus laughing at Socrates and Adeimantus (Rep. 337a3), Polus laughing at Socrates (Grg. 473e2), and the crowd laughing at Clinias’ helplessness in answering Euthydemus’ and Dionysodorus’ questions (Euthd. 276b7, 276d1). Socrates, who seldom is depicted as laughing, will often refer to absent or imaginary interlocutors, who would laugh at him and his interlocutor(s) were they present—for example, the many laughing at Socrates, Protagoras, and Prodicus (Prot. 355c8) and the absent questioner laughing at Socrates and Hippias (Hipp. maj. 289c1, 291e6–7, 299a1).2 There are other examples of laughter that do not seem to fit this competitive or derisive model—the symposiasts’ good-natured laughter at Alcibiades’ drunken entrance (Symp. 213a1, 222c1); the group’s laughter at the ludicrous scene caused by everyone’s desire to sit next to Charmides (Chrm. 155b9–c1); Cephalus’ laughter at Polemarchus’ joke about inheriting the argument (Rep. 331d9); and so on.3 Further, Plato employs the techniques of comedy in presenting several of Socrates’ interlocutors as ridiculous figures, and it is plausible to think that we are meant to laugh at them, even if Socrates does not. Consider, for example, the presentation of the characters of Ion, Hippias, Euthydemus, and Dionysodorus—each of these characters is portrayed in ways that employ the techniques of Aristophanic comedy.4
Despite the prevalence of laughter both inside and outside the dialogues, Plato’s explicit theorizing about laughter and comedy is mainly critical and focused on particular sorts of laughter that are presented as morally harmful. This chapter takes up the question of what exactly Plato’s views on the moral harmfulness of these kinds of laughter are, how they are related, and what space there
1 See de Vries 1985; for a useful index of laughter words in Plato, see Mader 1977: 130–32.
2 Cf. Tht. 200a12. On Socrates’ concealed or implicit laughter, see Halliwell 2008: 276–300.
4 See Trivigno 2012a; Trivigno 2016. Cf. Athenaeus’ vivid descriptions of Plato’s satirical portrayals in Deiphnosophists 11.505–7. On Plato’s use of parody to critique rival methodologies and genres, see Trivigno 2009; Trivigno 2012b.
is left over for what we might call “ethically appropriate” laughter. I provide an account of Plato’s three distinct analyses of the moral harm of laughter: (§1) in Republic 3, Socrates rejects stories of gods being overcome by laughter on the grounds that powerful laughter will provoke a powerful change in one’s condition; (§2) in Republic 10, Socrates charges that comedy, like tragedy, has the power to tempt even those with knowledge to let down their guard and to laugh at jokes that would be inappropriate to tell, thus strengthening the lower part of one’s soul; and (§3) in the Philebus 48a–50a, Socrates gives a definition of to geloion (the laughable or ridiculous) in terms of self-ignorance, and he provides an analysis of what I will call “derisive laughter,” on which it indulges an unjust emotion, phthonos (“envy” or “malice”). On the face of it, these criticisms seem to have little in common: the first seems focused on powerful or intense laughter, the second on the seeming harmlessness of laughter in the theater, and the last on the emotional causes and consequences of derisive laughter. On my reconstruction, these criticisms are not only logically consistent but also mutually supporting. I argue that Republic 10’s analysis helps to flesh out what is harmful about powerful laughter in Republic 3 and that the emotional analysis in the Philebus helps to flesh out how laughter affects one’s character and strengthens the lower parts of the soul. All three passages share a concern with the ways in which poetical and theatrical performances, and Old Comedy in particular, model, incite, and encourage morally harmful laughter. In the fourth section of the chapter (§4), I turn to the possibility of ethically appropriate laughter as outlined in the Laws, in which the Athenian distinguishes between ridicule in savage earnest and ridicule in a playful spirit (935a–936a) and lays out the educational benefits of comedy (816d–817a).5 On this account, laughter may be a useful educational tool for developing the right attitude toward vice.6 In the end, I briefly consider the implications of my account for Plato’s own use of comedy.
5 These passages in Plato are also treated in Heath’s chapter in this volume, and our accounts are quite similar. The Philebus passage is important for McCabe’s chapter in this volume, but we have very different ideas about how best to understand it.
6 One might object to my methodology on the grounds that I am taking four passages out of their native context, examining them as freestanding accounts of laughter, and reconstructing an independent view out of them. While I see the force of the objection, my analyses are focused on the ethical implications and moral psychology of laughter and these issues are precisely what is at stake in the four passages. Halliwell, e.g., denies that these passages can be used to construct “a simple conception of laughter” or to create a theory of laughter (2008: 301). My aims in this chapter are more modest: to construct a consistent account of the moral harm of some kinds of laughter.
1. Powerful Laughter in Republic 388e5–389b1
The argument against powerful laughter comes in the context of Socrates’ discussion with Adeimantus about the regulations governing poetry and the musical education of the guardians. Socrates has just argued that “the lamentations and pitiful speeches of famous men” (387d11–12) should be excised from the poetic canon (387d–388e). On Socrates’ account, the decent man (ὁ ἐπιεικὴς ἀνὴρ) is “most self-sufficient for living well and, above all others, has the least need of anyone else” (387d11–e1); he will thus “least give way to lamentations and bear misfortune most quietly” (387e6–7). By contrast, the one who approves of intense lamentation of the sort cited from the Iliad will “chant many dirges and lamentations at even insignificant misfortunes” (388d6–7).7 After this account, Socrates turns to the parallel case of laughter, here quoted in full:
Moreover, [the guardians] mustn’t be lovers of laughter (φιλογέλωτάς) either. For nearly whenever someone gives in to powerful laughter (ἐφιῇ ἰσχυρῷ γέλωτι), he pursues a powerful change of condition (ἰσχυρὰν καὶ μεταβολὴν ζητεῖ
τοιοῦτον).
So I believe.
Then, if someone represents worthwhile people (ἀνθρώπους ἀξίους) as overcome (κρατουμένους) by laughter, we won’t approve, and we’ll approve even less if they represent gods that way.
Much less.
Then we won’t approve of Homer saying things like this about the gods: And unquenchable laughter (ἄσβεστος . . . γέλως) arose among the blessed gods As they saw Hephaestus limping through the hall. [Il. 1.599–600]
According to your argument, such things must be rejected. If you want to call it mine, but they must be rejected in any case. (Republic 388e5–389b1)
The argument of the passage is very much in line with the other restrictions on poetry. In short, a moral exemplar—a god, hero, or famous person—ought not to be portrayed as possessing a vice and acting viciously and ought to be portrayed as possessing a virtue and acting virtuously. By portraying the gods as overcome by powerful laughter, Homer implicitly endorses the practice as ethically
7 The translation of the Republic and Philebus passages are Cooper 1997, with slight modifications. The translations of the Laws passages are my own.
appropriate.8 The core interpretive challenge comes in identifying what exactly is ethically inappropriate about powerful laughter.
Just as in the case of lamentations, Socrates draws a link between the poetic representation of powerful laughter, the approval of that experience, and the development of a disposition toward laughter. A “lover of laughter” may be thought of as one who desires all experiences of laughter and enjoys its pleasures frequently, indiscriminately, and intensely,9 and, on this account, one approving of and indulging in intense laughter will become such a person. Socrates’ explanation for this psychic progression is somewhat vague. It is, first, not obvious what “condition” (τὸ τοιοῦτον) is changed by powerful laughter, but state of character and emotional state are viable candidates. Second, assuming that Socrates has either or both of these in mind, it is still not clear what the argument is. I suggest that there are two compressed arguments here: one that focuses on the intensity of powerful laughter and one that focuses on the passivity of the agent laughing.
First, the idea that powerful changes to one psychic condition are problematic in themselves seems quite plausible. In particular, it seems clear that powerful changes to one’s condition that result from experiences of intense pleasure are morally harmful. If Socrates here assumes powerful laughter to be intensely pleasurable—a highly credible thought—then the structure of the argument seems straightforward, since intense pleasure changes both one’s emotional state and state of character, often, if not always, for the worse. Second, Socrates’ descriptions of the experience of powerful laughter put the laughing agent in a passive position, in which it is the laughter, not the agent, that is in control: people “give in” to powerful laughter (388e6), they are “overcome” by it (388e9), and the gods’ laughter is “unquenchable” (389a5). This passivity also seems to be a likely result of intense pleasure and incompatible with the selfpossession of virtuous agents and divine beings. Indulging in powerful laughter seems to threaten the stability of an agent’s emotional state and thereby his character and self-sufficiency. This analysis dovetails with what Socrates says about lamentations and grief: misfortunes should be born in a way that best reflects the self-sufficiency of the virtuous agent, and indulging in excessive mourning threatens this stability.10 Further, intense pleasure might lead one to become a lover of the experience that caused it. Since the criticism here is aimed at powerful laughter, we might reasonably speculate that, as in the case of lamentations, a quieter, less intense kind of laughter is permitted. This suspicion gets partial
8 Cf. Od. 8.326, in which the same line is used to describe the male gods’ “unquenchable” laughter at the sight of Ares and Aphrodite in flagrante. This passage (Od. 266–366) is excised at Rep. 390c for its effect on the guardians’ moderation because of the scene’s sexual illicitness. On the Homeric portrayal of laughter, see Halliwell 2008: 51–99.
9 Cf. Rep. 474c on lovers’ lack of discrimination.
10 Cf. Laws 732c on the avoidance of excessive laughter and tears.
confirmation from the two times in the Phaedo that Socrates is described as laughing: in those cases, he does so “quietly” (84d8) or “softly” (115c6). He seems, in short, in control of himself when he laughs.
Socrates does not say what would be inappropriate to laugh at, but we might glean some clues from his example. Homer portrays the gods laughing at Hephaestus, who, in trying to broker a truce between Zeus and Hera, assumes the role of a servant and hobbles around (he had a lame foot) pouring nectar into the gods’ cups. Hephaestus is playing the buffoon here, setting himself up for ridicule on purpose, and it seems clear that the gods are laughing at Hephaestus for his absurd display. What might be inappropriate about this laughter? The most obvious answer is that it is inappropriate to laugh at a god. This need not be merely speculation regarding what piety would permit—it follows directly from two claims that Socrates clearly endorses elsewhere in the dialogue. The first comes in Republic 2’s discussion of the gods: they are, in short, good, indeed perfect (379a–c; 381b–c); the second comes later in book 5, where Socrates seems to specify what is genuinely or truly laughable: “[I]t’s foolish to think that anything besides the bad (τὸ κακόν) is ridiculous (γελοῖον) or to try to raise a laugh at the sight of anything besides what’s stupid or bad (τοῦ ἄφρονός
κακοῦ)” (452d6–e1). If only what is bad is genuinely ridiculous and the gods are good, they cannot be proper targets for laughter.
While this passage provides some content to the moral harm of powerful laughter, as well as providing some guidance regarding the nature of the objects at which it would be inappropriate to laugh, it still leaves unexplained the psychic mechanisms whereby powerful laughter effects a change in one’s condition. To make some headway on these questions, I turn to Republic 10.
2. Laughter and the Lower Part of the Soul in Republic 606c2–10
In Republic 10, Socrates returns to the question of poetry, and the issue of lamentations and laughter again emerges, and again we have a slightly longer account of lamentation followed by a shorter account of laughter. The central context here is Socrates’ so-called greatest charge against imitative poetry,11 namely, that “with a few rare exceptions it is able to corrupt even decent people” (605c6–8). This greatest charge builds upon the previous criticism (602c–605c), in which Socrates argues that imitative poetry systematically aims at pleasing, and thus
11 I understand “imitative poetry” to refer to poetry that contains a lot of varied imitation and gives much pleasure, not to all poetry insofar as it contains imitations or representations. See Nehamas 1982; Ferrari 1989; Janaway 1995; Moss 2007.
strengthening, the appetitive-emotional part of the soul at the expense of the rational part.12 Whereas the first argument is focused on the mass audience, whose desires imitative poetry reflects (605a1–6), the greatest charge (605c–607a), by contrast, is concerned with the good or decent people, who are tempted to think of the pleasures of imitative poetry as harmless, and thus willingly subject themselves to it. On Socrates’ analysis, the lower part of the soul “hungers for the satisfaction of weeping and wailing,” since it “desires these things by nature” (606a3–7), while reason, mistakenly thinking that there is nothing shameful about “praising and pitying another man . . . who grieves excessively,” “relaxes its guard” over the soul, and allows it to weep and sympathize with the tragic figure in order to achieve “the definite gain involved in doing so, namely pleasure” (606a8–b5). Thus, the decent audience members enjoy the suffering in tragedies, not realizing that this will affect how they respond to misfortunes in real life. Socrates then turns to the parallel case of comedy, here quoted in full:
And doesn’t the same argument (ὁ αὐτὸς λόγος) apply to the laughable (περὶ τοῦ γελοίου)? If there are any jokes that you yourself would be ashamed to tell, but that you very much enjoy hearing and don’t hate as something base (πονηρά), either in comedies or in private, aren’t you doing the same thing as in the case of what provokes pity? The part of you that wanted to tell the jokes and that was held back by your reason, for fear of being thought a buffoon (βωμολοχίας), you then release, and making it strong, you do not realize that you often get carried away in your own affairs, such that you become a comedian (κωμῳδοποιὸς) yourself. (Rep. 606c2–10)
Socrates’ reference to “the same argument” means that this very short analysis is meant to borrow some of its core features from the analysis of watching pitiful scenes.
Given the context and parallel case, the argument is fairly straightforward: a good person might allow herself to enjoy and to laugh at a joke that she would be ashamed to make herself. This permission involves an implicit approval of the joke. There is, in such a case, a psychic conflict that is being played out in the mind of the decent audience member. There is a part of her soul—the lower part—that would gladly have made the joke herself, since that part desires these shameful jokes by nature. Given this, one might assume that the jokes will have something to do with the body and bodily pleasure and/or honor and competitiveness. Indeed, one finds a wide range of such jokes in Old Comedy: there are fart
12 I am bracketing larger interpretive questions about how many parts of the soul are implicated in book 10’s analysis, though I take it as uncontroversial that references to the lower part are meant to encompass the motivations previously attributed to appetite and spirit. See Adam 1902: 602c ad loc.
