ABSTRACT
We examine the most widely supported candidate for the role of ‘essential ingredient’ in humour.
If there is one generalization that can be extracted from the literature about humour, it is that humour involves incongruity. This point, with varying terminology, has been made by numerous authors: Keith-Speigel (1972) lists 24, the earliest from 1759. Morreall (1987) sees it in the writings of Hutcheson (1750) and Hartley (1810), and also in the much quoted remark of Kant that ‘Laughter is an affection arising from the sudden transformation of a strained expectation into nothing’ (Kant 1892) (see also Keith-Speigel (1972), Shultz (1976), Attardo (1994), Raskin (1985), Suls (1983), and – with a slight re-wording – Wilson (1979) ). Beattie is credited (e.g. by Keith-Speigel (1972), Shultz (1976), Rothbart (1976), Wilson (1979), Suls (1983), Raskin (1985), Attardo (1997) ) with suggesting it even earlier:
Laughter arises from the view of two or more inconsistent, unsuitable, or incongruous parts or circumstances, considered as united in one complex object or assemblage, or as acquiring a sort of mutual relation from the peculiar manner in which the mind takes notice of them.
