Publications

Publication details [#67905]

Aharoni, Ron. 2020. Detachment of empathy: A common denominator for two theories of humour. The European Journal of Humour Research 8 (1) : 55–67.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Keywords
Language as a subject

Annotation

This is a sequel to a previous paper (Aharoni2018), in which it was suggested that the game of humour is played not between two meanings of the same carrier, but between meaning and its carrier: the two are detached from each other by some means. The present paper wants to substantiate this thesis by some evidence, the main one being referred to in the title of the paper. It is that two well-known theories of humour, both presently neglected to a large extent, are based on this mechanism. In both the carrier of meaning is not words, but actions. In fact, one of the main messages of the paper is that often the carrier of meaning in jokes, and in humour in general, are actions. It is shown that both Bergson’s “automatic behaviour” theory and the superiority (or derision) theory are based on detachment of empathy, namely of identification. Since empathy and identification are man’s (and even animals’) main tool in deciphering meanings of actions, this results in detaching actions from their meanings.