Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 July 2009
Brian Ribeiro offers a sketch of a new theory of humour, pitched at roughly the same level of detail, and intended to have roughly the same level of inclusiveness, as the other available philosophical ‘theories’ of humour.
2 Hobbes, Thomas, The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, ed. Molesworth, William (Aalen: Scientia Verlag, 1966). See III: 46; IV: 45–47, 454–455.Google Scholar
3 Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Judgement, trans. Meredith, J. C. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952). See §54: 196–203.Google Scholar
4 Freud, Sigmund, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, trans. Strachey, James (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989).Google Scholar
5 This idea comes from Critchley, Simon's On Humour (New York: Routledge, 2002)Google Scholar: Chapter 3. This, along with various other scattered remarks in the book, helped me to begin to see the outlines of the distance theory as a theory of humour capable of explaining a diverse range of phenomena, from crass bodily humour to observational comedy.