Resume Session on Bergson's Laughter

23/04 : Session lead by Bojana Bauer on Bergson’s theory of laughter.

A collective lecture of the first chapter of “Le rire. Essais sur la signification du comique”, followed by a discussion.

The full text is available on :

http://philo.breucker.org/Bergson_le_rire.pdf

In english translation:

http://books.google.be/books?hl=fr&lr=&id=bGnK6YKGTeQC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=bergson+laughter&ots=7g3Qb0ZzC0&sig=2uGA5OwKI4O2SNeDS5IezZnOz6A#PPP1,M1

With the first chapter we dig into Bergson’s approach of the comical. No essentialist definition is given, but a description of how laughter can be provoked. According to Bergson, laughter comes about when something mechanical is introduced into something living. This idea is related the philosophy of the Elan Vital, a vital impetus which explains evolution in a less mechanical and more lively manner, as well as the creative impulse of mankind. The comical comes about when human behavior disconnect from the flow of life itself to get into the mechanical: eg. automatisms, habits. This according to the two tendencies of life: the continual creation of new forms versus the degradation towards inert matter and mechanisms. “Le rire” also highlights the social corrective function of humor that by the means of laughter punishes the ones who deviates from the norm.

Topics of discussion were:
-laughter as something purely cerebral requiring an emotional distance to its object;
-the power relation exerted by the spectator with the « puppet »figure;
-the issue of predictability and the comic / the surprise element as a principle of movement;
-the comedy as an impure genre, between art and life (versus the normative view of aesthetics as belonging to the realm of the sublime) Actually Bergson’s definition of art coincides with contemporary approach…
-the introduction of banality as a strategy to undermine the tragic;
-the absorption of vitality and the creation of the new by capitalism, immediately rigidifying the invention.

Further Readings:

“Bergson et Freud, théoriciens classiques du rire”, Catherine Kintzler in « Le moment 1900 en Philosophie

« La fortune du rire chez Baudelaire, Bergson, et Bakhtine », Pierre Siguret

« Pour une esthétique du comique. Considérations sur le rire de Bergson.» Romeo Bufalo

« Le rire étrange : Bergson avec Freud » JL Giribone

« Bataille et Bergson », JF Fourny, Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France

« Le comique et le risible » Martin Felder : http://www.martinfelder.net/TEXTE/memoire.pdf