Chapter 13 Part I The World as Representation § 13

The above considerations have pointed out that the application of reason has advantages and disadvantages, and it should also help to explain that although abstract knowledge is a reflection of intuitive representations, although it is based on intuitive representations, it does not completely coincide with them, and it is not everywhere. can be replaced.Rather, abstract knowledge never quite agrees with intuitive representations; and therefore, as we have seen, although there are many things that man can accomplish only with the aid of reason and methodical deliberation, there are also many things which can be accomplished without the use of reason. The better it is, it is the intuitive and the abstract cognition that do not coincide, so that the latter is as close to the former as mosaic is to painting.There is also a very peculiar phenomenon, which, like reason, is peculiarly human; until now, attempts have been made to explain it, but all explanations have been insufficient.This is the phenomenon of laughter, which is also based on a mismatch between intuitive and abstract cognition.Although the study of laughter here once again hinders our progress, we cannot avoid talking about it because the root of laughter is related to this place.A real object is always in some way thought through a concept, and laughter arises every time from the sudden discovery that the object and the concept do not coincide.Laughter has no other source than this; it is itself the very expression of this incompatibility.Incompatibility often arises in cases where two or more real objects are thought in terms of a concept and the identity of the concept is applied to these objects; The difference of the object in other respects also highlights the fact that the concept only corresponds to the object in one respect.It is also the case where a single real object, which on the one hand is rightly contained in the concept, suddenly feels [on the other hand] out of proportion to the concept.It is also often the case that, on the one hand, the more correct it is to sum things up in a concept, on the other hand, the more widely the things do not conform to the concept, the more amusing the effect of this comparison will be. stronger.Any laughter, therefore, is always brought about by a specious and therefore unexpected generalization, whether expressed in words or in demeanor.That's a short description of how things are ridiculous.

Here I will not waste time by giving examples from the story of the Laughing Woods, because the matter is simple and easy to understand, and there is no need to give them.The ludicrous incidents recalled by every reader are equally apt to confirm this.But since the jokes develop into two kinds, our theory can be both corroborated and clarified.This kind of category also comes from our theory. One is that there are two or several very different real objects or intuitive representations in cognition, but people deliberately use a concept that includes these two or more parties, which is the same as this concept. The unity of [broadly] marks these objects; this kind of joke is called the comic.One is the other way around. In cognition, there is a concept first, and then people pass from this concept to reality, to group reality, and to action; Fundamental differences are revealed unexpectedly, to the astonishment of those in the act; such jokes are called foolishness.According to this, any joke is either a funny idea or a foolish action; the former shows the distance between the two parties from the identity of objects to concepts, and the latter does the opposite; the former is always intentional. , the latter is always unintentional and is caused by external factors.To superficially reverse this starting point, to disguise the comic as foolishness, is the trick of court jesters and stage jesters.The trick is this: Knowing the difference between the various entities, but using that ridiculous method to unify these objects under a concept, starting from here, when the differences between the objects are revealed later, he is stunned and bewildered. , In fact, this is what he pre-arranged for himself.Excluding the last form of amusement, it can be seen from this brief but sufficiently complete theory of laughter that "funny" is always expressed by words, and stupidity is usually expressed by actions, but only in the case of threats [“Silly”] can also be expressed in words when doing something without actually doing it, or when the foolishness is only expressed in judgments and opinions.

It is silly and ridiculously pedantic.The reason why pedantry arises is that people don't trust their own understanding very much, so they don't let the understanding directly know what is right in individual cases; therefore, they always put the understanding under the guardianship of reason, and they always rely on reason, that is, It means that he often starts from general concepts and rules; in life, in art, and even in ethical words and deeds, he strictly abides by these rules and norms.From this comes the rigid forms, etiquette, [fixed] modes of expression and words [etc.] which are peculiar to the pedantic type.For the pedantic [this character] these things take the place of the essence of things.What is obvious here is that concepts do not match reality, that concepts can never be assigned to individual things, that the universality and rigid stipulations of concepts can never accurately conform to all the nuances and multiplicity of reality.In life, although a pedantic man is full of maxims and norms, he is almost always short-changed and appears to be unintelligent, dull, and useless.In art, concepts are not productive, and pedants can only produce lifeless, stiff, and disguised dead babies.Even in ethics, however noble the conduct, however just the intention, cannot everywhere conform to abstract norms, for in many cases there is a property of subtle differences between the different situations which necessitates a fixation on the good which comes directly from [the whole] personality. , and this is because when applying simple abstract norms, some norms can only be half-fit and produce wrong consequences, and some norms are incompatible with the personality that cannot be ignored by the parties, so they cannot be implemented and even abandoned halfway.In Kant's view that action is only due to purely theoretical abstract norms, without any emotional inclination or impulse, is the condition of action's moral value; in this regard, he also has the tendency to promote moral pedantry. suspect.Schiller's aphorism poem titled "Hesitation of Conscience" is intended to reproach the sage.When people speak [ironically] of "dogmatists," "theoreticians," "scholars," etc., especially in relation to political events, they mean pedants, that is, in the abstract, but not People who know things in concrete terms.The reason why abstraction is abstract lies in the abstraction of detailed regulations, and in fact, it is these things that matter.

To complete the theory here, there is one more variant of the jest to talk about, the trick of words, called calembourg in French and pun in English.The use of puns (called L'equivoque in French), mainly with obscenity (obscenity), also falls into this category.A jest is the forcing of two very different real objects into one concept, but a trick of words is the forcing of two concepts into one word by chance.This also produces a gap between the two sides [concept and substance], but only more superficially, because this gap arises not from the nature of things, but from accidental naming.The identity is in the concept, and the difference is in the thing, which is a wisecrack, but the difference is in the concept, and the sameness is in the thing, because the word is the thing. There is an almost forced metaphor for the relationship between "word tricks" and wisecracks, which is to say that this relationship is equivalent to the relationship between an inverted cone-shaped parabola above and a cone-shaped parabola below.Misunderstood words or "this is that" are unintentional "gallonbulls", and this has the same relationship to "word play" as stupidity has to playfulness.So hard of hearing people can provide jokes as well as fools, and imbecile comedy writers use deaf people instead of fools to make people laugh.

Here I only examine laughter from the psychological aspect. As for the physiological research, you can refer to the part discussed on page 134 of Chapter 6, Section 96 (First Edition) of Volume II as a supplementary article.