Henri bergson essay laughter 1980

If humor is not a necessary condition of laughter, then we might ask if it is sufficient. Often humor will produce laughter, but sometimes it results in only a smile. Obviously, these relatively distinct phenomena are intimately connected in some manner, but to understand the relationship we need clearer notions of both laugher and humor.

Laughter is caused by an accidental situation, caused by a movement. The source of the comic is the presence of a rigidity in life. Life is defined by Bergson a perpetual movement, it is characterized by flexibility and agility. Comic situations, such as that of a falling man, are situations where movement is not flexible.

It was written in French, the original title is Le Rire. Essai sur la signification du comique ( Laughter, an essay on the meaning of the comic ). As Mark Sinclair comments in Bergson (2020): with this essay 'Bergson belongs to the small number of major philosophers to have addressed in depth the topic of laughter and the comic as its source'.

Man is not only a being that can laugh, but also a being that is a source of laughter. laughter requires an indifference, a detachment from sensibility and emotion: it is more difficult to laugh when one is fully aware of the seriousness of a situation.